Let's try this slowly... if you have an edit box you are most likely are either creating it on a window (like CMyView) or on a dialog. From your comments about resources, I assumed that you were showing a dialog to change the interval, if that's not the case, you should look at the Create method for CEdit, in the styles or in ES_NUMBER to the current styles.

As for the other controls (dropdown, spinner, slider, etc), no, they are not significantly harder to use than an edit, besides "the jorney is the reward!" It would hurt to try something new!

When you are on the www.codeguru.com home page, there are a number of article sections on the left under the discussion board... you should browse through and read them (pick and choice, based on your desire for knowledge and needs). Also Codeproject has a number of begininng articles. Most if not all of these articles have attached sample code. There are other sites that you can find on the web that discuss begining windows programming.

Good Luck.