Lesson 1: Creating a Simple Win32 Application (2010)

This C++ Win32 video tutorial demonstrates how to create a simple Graphical User Interface (GUI) application. Win32 is the GUI Application Programming Interface (API) for Windows.

This lesson requires that you have an installed version of Visual C++ 2010. If you have not already installed it, you can follow the instructions in our C++ Console Lesson 0 video.

1. Open Visual C++. Left-click "File" in the menubar, mouse over "New," and left-click "Project" in the submenu.
2. This opens the "New Project" dialog, which should look like this. If it does not, left-click "Visual C++" and "Win32" in the left-hand pane under "Installed Templates."
   
3. In the center pane, left-click "Win32 Project" and left-click the box next to "Name:" and enter "Win32Lesson1." Finally, left-click the "OK" button to go on.
4. This opens the "Win32 Application Wizard." Just left-click the "Finish" button to create the project.
5. Now, you should see the created project with the code file "Win32Lesson1.cpp" in it.
   
6. To compile and execute the program, left-click "Debug" in the menubar and left-click "Start Debugging" in the submenu.
7. You might see a dialog come up telling you that the project is out of date. If so, just left-click the "Yes" button to go on.
8. Once the program is compiling and running, you should see this blank window come up. That is our first program, we will add functionality in the coming lessons.