Question about learning Windows programming (carefully selected title, I know): I have an OK grasp of C++, still working on it. But in the meantime I have been taking a peek at NeHe's OpenGL tutorials just for fun. It seems that you need to know a lot of Windows programming to make sense of a lot of it. Unfortunately, I know none. All of my C++ has been console projects. I'm using Visual Studio.net 2003... what would be the best way to learn some Windows programming? I've heard of a book called "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus." Does anyone know if this book touches on windows programming at all? Or does it assume you know windows pretty well and just teaches you how to program games? I know, the first answer is "Learn C++ really well first!" Like I said, I'm working on it, and I'm not going to stop learning it to learn windows programming. Its just an area that interests me and I'd like to poke around in. That being said, does anyone know anything about Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus? Any other good books anyone would suggest? Thanks!

You really could learn it on your own its a very simple concept actually. This site explains most of pure win32 stuff.
http://www.foosyerdoos.fsnet.co.uk/

Really if all your doing is games you only need to know how to setup the window not much else unless your really intrested. You could also check out a few of the availible win32 demos on this site:
http://www.gametutorials.com/

I'd recommend a book but the one I have is misplaced and I don't remember the name, haven't really used it for like 5 years.

I felt the same way as you when i started off, Win32 doesnt look pretty but is required. I finally dumped Win32 in favour of using GLUT to do all the dirty work for me. However after realising some of the limitations of GLUT, i have since switched to GLFW and have never touched a single line of Win32 for years.

If you only intend to develop games, i would suggest forgetting about Win32 and use some library to do the window/input/etc.. for you. This way, you can focus on OpenGL and the graphics code.

A plus with these libraries is that it makes my application cross-platform. I managed to compile my library on linux and run an application using the library without any changes to my source code. And i don't even know how to open a Window in Linux! Chances are the same code will compile fine on a Mac.

Basically you have a few choices, some notable ones are SDL and GLFW.

Look for the Charles Petzold books - apparantly they are very definitive on Win32

for windows program, try MSDN :P