Creating a Windows Project in Visual Studio [Windows PE Internals]

Just a very short blog post on how to create a windows api project in visual studio. Would be referencing this for other articles that I post.

Ensure Project template is of type C++, Windows and Console.

For now, just start with an Empty Project.

Give it a project name. I called it as WindowsApiProject.

Next right click your project, click Properties.

Under Configuration Properties->Linker->System, set the subsystem to Windows.

Hit Apply and Ok.

Now right click your Source folder, and create a new .cpp file.

Now lets create a main function.

In Windows Api, we create it with WinMain function instead of main.

#include <Windows.h>

int  WinMain(
     HINSTANCE hInstance,
     HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
     LPSTR     lpCmdLine,
     int       nCmdShow
)
{
    MessageBoxA(0, "Hello World!", "Bye", 0);

    return 0;
}

And we have our hello world message box.

I learnt how to create a simple hello world windows project. I realized the main definition was different then the regular c programs, we should use WinMain instead.

I also learnt how to configure Visual Studio to target the Windows subsystem.

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Getting a Handle to a Dynamically Linked Library