C++/Win32 : XP Visual Styles - no controls are showing up?

Question

Okay, so i'm pretty new to C++ & the Windows API and i'm just writing a small application. I wanted my application to make use of visual styles in both XP, Vista and Windows 7 so I added this line to the top of my code:

#pragma comment(linker,"\"/manifestdependency:type='win32' name='Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls' version='6.0.0.0' processorArchitecture='*' publicKeyToken='6595b64144ccf1df' language='*'\"")

It seemed to work perfectly on my Windows 7 machine and also Vista machine. But when I tried the application on XP the application wouldn't load any controls (e.g. buttons, labels etc.) - not even messageboxes would display.

This image shows a small test application which i've just put together to demonstrate what i'm trying to explain: http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/2250/myapp.png

In this test application i'm not using any particularly fancy or complicated code. I've effectively just taken the most basic sample code from the MSDN Library (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381409.aspx) and added a section to the WM_CREATE message to create a button:

MyBtn = CreateWindow(L"Button", L"My Button", BS_PUSHBUTTON | WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE, 25, 25, 100, 30, hWnd, NULL, hInst, 0);

But I just can't figure out what's going on and why its not working. Any ideas guys? Thank you in advanced.

(By the way the application works in XP if i remove the manifest section from the top - obviously without visual styles though. I should also probably mention that the app was built using Visual C++ 2010 Express on a Windows 7 machine - if that makes a difference?)

Answer 1

Do you call InitCommonControlsEx? Details are here.

Answer 2

#pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32'...

Answer 3

I too came across this issue today after upgrading to Win7 and VC++ 2010 pro.

I first thought perhaps my manifest was corrupt and what made it worst was this was my second project in VC++ 2010 and the first one worked fine on Win7 and XP.

So I came to the conclusion that including InitCommonControls() at the beginning of my program fixed this issue, why?

So I added this at the top of my code:

#include <Commctrl.h>
#pragma comment (lib, "Comctl32.lib")

And this in my init code:

InitCommonControls();

Plus further to my searching for answers, VC+ 2010 now has the SysLink control in the list of controls, and this is the reason my first project run fine. Add one of these to a dialogbox and as long as code is added to handle a notification the Comctl32.lib and InitCommonControls or InitCommonControlsEx isn't needed? The built program will too run in Win7 and XP as long as a manifest with the common controls is embedded!

Answer 4

Hans Passant:

The idea of having the "manifest" included in the executable is to avoid calling the InitCommonControls.

Without the manifest the OS automatically initializes the use of the most "common" comomn controls. And if the manifest is found in the executable resources - exactly those controls are initialized.

Well, I don't know the exact cause of the problem, I only can try to guess.

• Maybe common controls version 6.0 is not supported in Windows XP (?)
• Perhaps the manifest must include all the needed controls, not only the version. Vista and may Wnd7 automatically initialize all the "common" common controls of the specified version, whereas Windows XP may not