I am a beginner, and learning C, I find it hard to grasp the whole programming concept. so hopefully this would help to clear up some things along the way.

When programming in windows, which is my aim for the time being, it is really hard for me to understand how windows communicate with the programs that run on it.

A question i have been pondering about is how when you incorporate a function call which is in another memory location on the disk or memory(not a function you yourself wrote and is included in the compilation), especially the windows API, does the compiler know where the function location is so when the program is run it can call that function?

For example, a very simple program that displays a window which reads hello world. You would have to call windows API functions to achieve such features as creating the window, its size, colors and so on...

So basically what I am struggling to grasp is how the programs I write communicate with the platform, framework they are run on(generally windows for Windows API).

Apart from clarification on this one above, i would love a resource that explains this concept further.

Thanks for your time!