There was a period of time when Microsoft were very enamoured of the document-view model of desktop applications; you could choose to build MDI (multiple docume

There was a period of time when Microsoft were very enamoured of the document-view model of desktop applications; you could choose to build MDI (multiple document interface) or SDI (single ...) applications, complete with menu management, so if you want to do a Word clone, knock yourself out. however if you just wanted a simple doohickey with a few buttons and whatnot - like the vast majority of cases - you were out of luck. There was of course a way to do this (and it became easier in later releases of Visual C++), but you had to fight the stupid M/SDI model the whole way.