PLEASE HELP - Is there know way to prevent FLASHing of AllocConsole() when hiding?

I am using the ALlocConsole() api to allow me to get the output sent from a running dos application. Ideally i dont want ot use it but apparently i need it so i can read the stdout of the console app. The problem with using this api call is that it brings up a console window ... i tried hiding the window by getting a handle to it and then using ShowWindow() to hide it but it causes a very annoying FLASH when it attempts to hide this console window after the AllocConsole() call. Is there ANY WAY in this vast universe of win32 apis to prevent this flashing while i HIDE this console window? I tried hooking (looking for a window that is popping up in my calling process) but know good. It seems i might have to do a global wide hook to capture this pop up wndow so i can then hide it from there but f-me i dont want to create a separate DLL so that i can make this global wide hooking work...I just dont plain want to use hooking if i have to (but if i must i only want it within the process but from my experiments the console window cant be hooked this way). Is there ANY OTHER way to hide this console window without any flash at all?

THanks

I use consoles this way all the time. never had any flashing issue. possible you are doing something off in your code. mind posting your code?