Figuring it out

I took another look at the couple of Windows tutoral web sites I've found, looking specifically for graphics information, and I found some stuff I half-recognize, but not the specific things I was looking for. I also looked at the header file in my compiler, and found among the definitions technical information on what parameters go in various definitions, but (obviously) no summary of what those parameters do or what they are for, or which functions do which.

I did another search for an older version of the Microsoft Platform SDK that has documentation on those functions. Microsoft has a link to a company that still has CDs containing earlier versions that I might be able for only the cost of shipping, (The current oldest one they offer themselves requires at least Windows 2000) . We'll see whether its useful.
In the meantime, I'm using the same compiler I used in school, but it had a number of visual components I could drag and drop onto a form. (I've never liked the drag-and-drop style of programming), and I couldn't find those components. So I went digging through the help files, and after a bunch of trial and error, found how to tell my compiler to use them, so I'm a bit happier about that.