Currently working on open/read images in VC++. Some examples i came across on the internet use Windows.h I/O routines like ReadFile...but there seems to be inconsistency in there declaration. Here's what i have got. //So i have this function to load file BYTE* LoadFile ( int* width, int* height, long* size, LPCWSTR bmpfile ) { BITMAPFILEHEADER bmpheader; BITMAPINFOHEADER bmpinfo; DWORD bytesread = 0; HANDLE file = CreateFile ( bmpfile , GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ,NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN, NULL ); if ( NULL == file ) return NULL; if ( ReadFile ( file, &bmpheader, sizeof ( BITMAPFILEHEADER ),&bytesread, NULL ) == false ) { CloseHandle ( file ); return NULL; } . . . return appropriate value; } Now the ReadFile API function is declared as follows in WinBase.h WINBASEAPI BOOL WINAPI ReadFile( In HANDLE hFile, Out LPVOID lpBuffer, In DWORD nNumberOfBytesToRead, _Out_opt_ LPDWORD lpNumberOfBytesRead, _Inout_opt_ LPOVERLAPPED lpOverlapped ); And in MSDN examples... They call this function like this. ReadFile(hFile, chBuffer, BUFSIZE, &dwBytesRead, NULL) Which expects that "bytesRead" is sort of out parameter. so it gives me number of bytes read. But in my code ..it is giving error message. 'ReadFile' : cannot convert parameter 4 from 'LPDWORD *' to 'LPDWORD' so i just initialized bytesRead to 0 and passed by value.( which is wrong..but just to check if it works ). then it gives this exception Unhandled exception at 0x774406ae in ImProc.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x00000000. Kindly suggest . Kindly tell if any code i missed out....including while forming the question itself. Thanks.