Recommended Books and References

Books

If you expect anyone online to treat you with respect while you are learning, you NEED to get a good book to learn from. We're here to provide direction and explain things that need explaining, not to be your librarian or teach you step by step.

You can find more recommended books and links to buy at the #Winprog Store.

Programming Windows: by Charles Petzold. The book to get on Win32 API. If you want to write programs using just the API (which is what this tutorial covers), you need this book.
Programming Windows with MFC: by Jeff Prosise. If you want to venture into MFC (AFTER becoming fully accustomed to using the Win32 API), this is the book for you. If you don't like MFC but intend on getting a job doing windows developement, get this anyway, it's better to know than not.
Programming Applications for Windows: by Jeffrey Richter. Not for newbies, if you want to be up on managing processes and threads, dlls, windows memory management, exception handling, and hooking into the system, then this is the book for you.
Visual C++ Windows Shell Programming: by Dino Esposito. For anyone interested in the visual and user-friendly aspects of windows, this book covers writing extentions to the windows shell, working efficiently with files and drag and drop, customizing the taskbar and windows explorer, and numerous other tricks. Well worthwhile for anyone writing GUI apps in windows.
Network Programming for Microsoft Windows: Up to date information on network programming, including NetBIOS, mailslots and pipes, and of course the ever important windows sockets, complete with winsock2 and raw sockets. Also contains specific information on the various windows platforms including 2000 and CE.

Links

MSDN Online: This site has references for all imaginable Microsoft technologies, including full Win32 API and MFC documentation. If this didn't come with your compiler (ie. VC++) then the completely free online site will provide you with the required information. People will get really pissed off if you ask questions you could answer by doing a simple search on MSDN.
#winprog homepage: See FAQ and Store