Question

I am new to Windows programming. On Windows OS, almost every application opens a window, and I want to know that if all these applications invoke the same API CreateWindow() to create their windows?

Or, another way to ask my question: Do Games, Music Players, Browsers, Instant Messaging, IDEs, etc create their window all by invoking API CreateWindow()? If not, what other APIs can be used to create a windows on Windows?

Answer 1

Yes, that and CreateWindowEx are the only APIs that can create a window (other related APIs such as DialogBox and AllocConsole also do this internally). No matter what graphics stack each application uses (WPF, DirectX etc) in the end it all boils down to a CreateWindow.