Service and/or "no-show" window in Windows 95

[joex]

My understanding is that Windows 95 does not support services. If it is possible to have a service
run, how is this done?

If it is not possible/simple to have a service run, I want a program that does not show a window when
it executes. I attempt to achieve this with ShowWindow. However, using this does not seem to stop
a window from appearing briefly on the screen. Is there a way to keey the program from appearing at
all?

Here are your options, joex

[Alex Fedotov]

Here you can read about services in Windows 95/98:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ps...95scm_5cmq.htm

You can create an application without any windows at all, or
you can create an application with invisible windows. To
create invisible window just make sure that WS_VISIBLE style
is not specified at window creation. ShowWindow should also
work.

[joex]

The window still briefly appears even when WS_VISIBLE is removed from the dialog in the rc file.

How can a project be created without any windows - I don't mean a console application, because a DOS window also appears for a moment.

[Alex Fedotov]

You didn't mention in the original post that the window is
a dialog window. Now I understand your problem, since I had
the same.

Modal dialog is shown regardless of WS_VISIBLE style in the
dialog template. Moreover, calling ShowWindow(SW_HIDE) in
WM_INITDIALOG handler also won't help, because the system
shows dialog some later (and I don't know exactly when it
happens -- I tried to track it without success).

I resolved it by creating modeless dialog. It will be hidden
if WS_VISIBLE flag is not specified in the dialog template.

If you want to create a project without any windows just do
your job inside WinMain function. Or, if you are using MFC,
do it inside InitInstance and return FALSE.

[joex]

If no dialog is created, then putting either:

return FALSE;
return TRUE;

in InitInstance - results in the program exiting. Does there have to be a modeless dialog for this to work?

[Alex Fedotov]

I mean you should do all your work inside InitInstance and
exit from this function only when entire program has to exit.

[joex]

Thanks.

BTW, to make a modal dialog invisible, do the following:

in DefWindowProc, put:

if (message == WM_NCPAINT)
{
ShowWindow(SW_HIDE);
}