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Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,563

Windows C API -- vanished?

This is more of a curiosity thing, but while Microsoft is in love with C++ and (more recently) C#/.NET, it still has a more-or-less complete C API -- right?
You can code Windows apps in pure C if you really want -- right?

It seems all reference to modern Windows (Vista, 7) C APIs have vanished.  Does anyone know of a guide to programming in C with modern Windows?
Most old stuff would probably work since they need to maintain backwards-compatibility, but I'm curious, shouldn't Microsoft still have official docs somewhere?

PirateJonno

Forum Fellow

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-04-13

Posts: 372

Re: Windows C API -- vanished?

platform sdk? I think thats what it was called. I shudder just to think about it :S

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"You can watch for your administrator to install the latest kernel with watch uname -r" - From the watch man page

Themaister

Member

From: Trondheim, Norway

Registered: 2008-07-21

Posts: 652

Website

Re: Windows C API -- vanished?

Win32 in C is a lost art. Latest tutorials I generally see are from around 2000. Their newest APIs (Vista and onward) are C++/.NET only afaik, and often use proprietary extensions to C++ so they can only be compiled with MSVC++. I don't think they have removed anything of their C apis, though.

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Martijn

Member

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 4

Re: Windows C API -- vanished?

It's perfectly possible to write your entire application in the Win32 API. It really depends on how much time you want to spend on it. I'd still choose the plain Win32 API over MFC any day though.

Also, not that much has changed. I mean, you still use CreateWindow for everything, you've got your window procedure and all the other stuff. If you're looking for documentation, msdn is the place to go.