conflict between editing and background updating of edit control

[Wild Thing]

Hi everybody,

I'm developping an applicaton in C, (not C++!), using Visual Studio .NET, thats connecting to a machine via profibus. Its showing a dialog box with about 20 values in edit controls, as well as some check - and radio buttons. I need to solve 2 problems:

1. The values need to be shown asap, so i created a thread thats steadily reading and showing them. I too need to change them. Because updating is done by a thread, it conflicts with editing and sending. To solve this problem, I see 2 ways: 1. blocking the update to the control thats being edited 2. creating a popup , edit there and send it when closing. Any hints, please?

2. Are there any enhancements to edit control available that support input of floating point values, or do I have do do it all by myself?

I did years in developping drivers for applications on some special hardware, and just started programming Windows; so forgive me if these questions seem strange to you.

Do you gurus out there have other (better) ideas, especially for 1. ?
Examples are very welcome!

Thx in advance