Programming Windows®, Fifth Edition

Miscellaneous DLL Topics

I mentioned earlier that a dynamic library module doesn’t receive messages. However, a library module can call GetMessage and PeekMessage. The messages the library pulls from the queue with these functions are actually messages for the program that called the library function. In general, the library works on behalf of the program calling it—a rule that holds for most Windows functions that a library calls.

A dynamic library can load resources (such as icons, strings, and bitmaps) either from the library file or from the file of the program that calls the library. The functions that load resources require an instance handle. If the library uses its own instance handle (which is passed to the library during initialization), ...