No one said that managing the Windows message loop was going to be easy. It's amazing the number of messages, the rules, the weirdness and then have to catch the few messages you really care about. I'm so glad I made the Linux and Gtk move. I get more done with less code. The other benefit I see using Gtk is if you see something in an application that attracts you, look at the code (doesn't matter what language it is) and see how the Gtk functions are used to help build your own application.