Hello. Well, I have a simple question, at least I hope its simple. I was interested in win32 console for a while. Our teacher told us, that windows console is just for DOS and real mode emulation purposes. Well, I know it is not true, becouse DOS applications are runned by emulator which only uses console to display output. Another thing I learned is that console is built into Windows since NT. Well. But what I could not find is, how actually are console programs written to use console. I use Visual C++ for programming (well, for learning). So, the only thing I need to do for using console is select console project. I first thought that windows decides wheather it run app in console or tries to run app in window mode. So I created win32 program and tried printf(). Well, I could not compile it. I know that by definition printf() prints text or variables to stdout. I also found that stdout is the console interface for output. But, I could not find what actually stdout is.

So, basicly what I want to ask is, where is the difference between console app and win32 app. I thought that windows starts console when it gets command from "console-family" functions. But obvisously it does not, so there must be some code that actually commands windows to create console interface.

And the second question is, when the console is created, how does windows recognize which console terminal is used for what app? I mean, what actually is stdout? Is it a area in memory , or some windows routine that is called? Thanks.