INT GetTree (HWND hWnd, HTREEITEM hItem, HKEY *pRoot, TCHAR *pszKey, 
             INT nMax) {
    TV_ITEM tvi;
    TCHAR szName[256];
    HTREEITEM hParent;
    HWND hwndTV = GetDlgItem (hWnd, ID_TREEV);

    memset (&tvi, 0, sizeof (tvi));

    hParent = TreeView_GetParent (hwndTV, hItem);
    if (hParent) { 
        // Get the parent of the parent of the...
        GetTree (hWnd, hParent, pRoot, pszKey, nMax);

        // Get the name of the item.
        tvi.mask = TVIF_TEXT;
        tvi.hItem = hItem;
        tvi.pszText = szName;
        tvi.cchTextMax = dim(szName);
        TreeView_GetItem (hwndTV, &tvi);  //send the TVM_GETITEM message?

        lstrcat (pszKey, TEXT ("\\"));
        lstrcat (pszKey, szName);
    } else {
        *pszKey = TEXT ('\0');
        szName[0] = TEXT ('\0');
        // Get the name of the item.
        tvi.mask = TVIF_TEXT | TVIF_PARAM;
        tvi.hItem = hItem;
        tvi.pszText = szName;
        tvi.cchTextMax = dim(szName);
        if (TreeView_GetItem (hwndTV, &tvi))
            //*pRoot = (HTREEITEM)tvi.lParam;  //original
      hItem = (HTREEITEM)tvi.lParam;
        else {
            INT rc = GetLastError();
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

The block of code that begins with the comment "Get the name of the item" does not make sense to me. If you are getting the listview item why does the code set the parameters of the item being retrieved, because if you already had the values there would be no need to retrieve them.

Secondly near the comment "original" is the original line of code which will compile with a varning under embedded visual c++, but if you copy the exact same code into visual studio 2008 it will not compile. Since I did not write any of this code and am trying to learn is it possible the original author made a mistake on this line, since the *pRoot should point to and HKEY type yet he is casting to an HTREEITEM type which should never work since the data types don't match?

(Side note someone with a better reputation should add a windows ce tag to SO since windows mobile is not the same as windows ce.)