Which errors do you get and where exactly are you stuck ? That'll be good to know to help specifically.

11 hours ago, Ferik said:

p.s. Dear DerTroll, I might not be a professional C/C++ programmer but i know enough and have done lots of exercise from important textbooks and algorithms and my only results have been as numbers and texts. Thanks anyway for your suggestion.

The thing with C++ is, that knowing the language and being capable of writing programs is just one part. From what I read, the problems you are facing result from not knowing the other part well enough, the build system. I had similar troubles when I started myself. Those problems will vanish, once you really understand how the compiler and linker work together and how you control them.

That is the reason why I suggested to put the book and VS aside and learn more about the build system. Start writing some makefiles. Intentionally put some mistakes into your code to see how the compiler/linker reacts. Try to understand the reaction. Do some research on the specific error messages. Once you got that you will probably understand the VS errors or at least you might get a  clue about the origin of the problem.

Also, feel free to ask more questions if you get stuck. But to get good answers, you need to give us a little bit more to work with. Code snippets or error messages are important for us to help you.

12 hours ago, Ferik said:

As you may see I am totally disappointed now (with myself). 

Don't be. C++ is really not easy. Probably everybody here had similar issues when they started. If you are still willing to learn it (I hope so), let's try to get you onto the right path:

Make yourself a Github account (https://github.com/) and create a new repository (if you haven't already done this).

Install git on your computer and clone the empty repository to a directory on your computer (git clone <github-link> <directory>).

Now start your VS project inside that directory. You can also copy the tutorials from the book if the author is okay with that. Then just upload your code (relevant commands: git status, git add, git commit, git push) and give us the repository link.

This will enable us, to test the code on our own computers and then we will most probably be able to tell you

12 hours ago, Ferik said:

"ok first open this then hit that and then do these".

If you have any questions about using git or GitHub, ask. But as you will see, it is rather easy to use as long as you are not working on a large project. I think using a GitHub repository is the best way for us to help you efficiently and to avoid frustration.

Don't be ashamed/afraid to ask a lot of questions. Most people here are willing to help and are quite patient. You just need to give them the information's they need and a repository with your code is enough information most of the time.

Greetings

I've had similar issues before, i had a DX10 book (a different book) - purchased it at a time when my main gaming computer only had DX9 and only had a graphics card capable of DX9 - spent days and days trying to get something to run, only to realise my actual dependency on DX10 meant i needed essentially either a new graphics card or a new computer.

All of the code on the disk was useless to me as it stood; however i could take the principles and apply them in other ways.

Maybe it's too simplistic of me to mention but perhaps you might take some of the code from the examples and bring snippets and functions forwards into a 'clean' new visual studio project? - over the years i've had so many issues with VS it's laughable - to the point it puts me off a fair bit; these days i use visual studio code - although i am not compiling dll's or exe's etc.

If what you want to achieve is applying learning from the book, then it might be a good opportunity to try writing a very simple application from scratch in your IDE in 2019.. This will probably remain one of the biggest challenges authors of this sort of content have - as soon as you've published you're only ever 12 months or so away from being out of date