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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

Thanks.

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

in DefWindowProc, put:

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