Visual C++ 4 Unleashed
Visual C++ 5 Unleashed
Windows 98/NT Programming Unleashed

This book, originally published in January 1996 under the title Visual C++ 4 Unleashed, provides an in-depth introduction into most Windows C++ programming topics. Intended for the serious developer, the book assumes knowledge of the C++ programming language and the basics of Windows programming. The book's second edition (Visual C++ 5 Unleashed) has also been published in German and Russian; Windows 98/NT Programming Unleashed has a Spanish language edition as well.

The book begins with an introduction to Windows and Win32 programming. This lays the groundwork for an excursion into various MFC and ActiveX programming topics. The last part of the book reviews a series of advanced programming topics, such as MAPI, TAPI, OpenGL, ATL, or DirectX programming.

The goal of this book is to go beyond providing point-and-shoot MFC recipes and show instead how things actually work. In addition to several MFC application examples, there are many simple (10-100 line) examples highlighting a variety of programming techniques. For example, if you still believe that the Windows equivalent of the Hello, World application must necessarily be 600 lines long, click here. Or, if you want to see an OLE automation server done in 300 lines of non-MFC code, click here.

I've seen reviews that stated that the book touches many subjects, and as a result, it is superficial. To some extent, it is necessarily true; when you wish to provide a comprehensive overview of nearly 50 difficult programming topics, even 1000 pages isn't enough. However, I attempted to compensate for this shortcoming by making each chapter self-contained (i.e., at the end of almost all chapters, you will have written a couple of simple, but working programs that demonstrate the concepts discussed.) I also tried to establish the foundations for further study by explaining how and why things work the way they do, as opposed to merely providing step-by-step instructions. The result cannot be that bad because even I use my own book sometimes!

Windows 98/NT Programming Unleashed Unleashed Table of Contents

• Preface
• Part I: Introduction to the Development System
  • 1 Using the Development Environment
• Part II: Under the Hood: Windows and the Win32 API
  • 2 Operating System Overview
    3 The Message Loop
    4 Windows, Dialog Boxes, and Controls
    5 Resource Files
    6 Drawing and Device Contexts
    7 Threads and Processes
    8 Memory Management
    9 File Management
    10 The Windows Clipboard
    11 The Registry
    12 Exception Handling
• Part III: Microsoft Foundation Classes
  • 13 Exploring an MFC Skeleton Application
    14 Working with Documents and Views
    15 Dialogs and Property Sheets
    16 MFC Support for Common Dialogs and Common Controls
    17 Using ActiveX Controls
    18 Device Context and GDI Objects
    19 Serialization: File and Archive Objects
    20 Collection Classes
    21 Internet Support Classes
    22 Exceptions, Multithreading, and Other MFC Classes
• Part IV: OLE, COM, and MFC Applications
  • 23 OLE, ActiveX, and the Component Object Model
    24 OLE Servers
    25 OLE Containers
    26 OLE Drag and Drop
    27 Automation
    28 Building ActiveX Controls with MFC
    29 Using the ActiveX Template Library
    30 ActiveX Documents
    31 Distributed COM
• Part V: Client/Server Solutions
  • 32 Database Programming Through ODBC
    33 Data Access Objects
    34 OLE DB and ADO
    35 Writing a Windows NT Service
    36 MTS and the Three-Tiered Model
• Part VI: Networks and Communications
  • 37 Writing Messaging Applications with MAPI
    38 TCP/IP Programming with Winsock
    39 Using the WinInet API
    40 Telephony Applications with TAPI
    41 Named Pipes and Remote Procedure Calls
• Part VII: Graphics and Multimedia
  • 42 Multimedia Applications
    43 The OpenGL Graphics Library
    44 High-Performance Graphics and Sound: The Game SDK
• Part VIII: Other Topics
  • 45 Implementing Context-Sensitive Help
    46 Creating Installation Programs
    47 User Interface Extensions
    48 Localization: Creating International Applications
• Bibliography

Windows 98/NT Programming Unleashed is published by Macmillan Publishing.