Why does the Win32-API have so many custom types?

Question

I\'m new to the Win32 API and the many new types begin to confuse me.

Some functions take 1-2 ints and 3 UINTS as arguments.

Answer 1

A coworker of mine would say "There is no problem that can't be solved (obfuscated?) by a level of indirection." In WIN32 you'll be dealing with WCHAR, UINT, etc. and you'll get used to it. You wont have to worry when you deploy that DLL which basic type a WCHAR or UNIT compiles to - it will "just work".

Best to read through some of the documentation to get used to it. Especially on the Wide char support (WCHAR, etc.). There's a nice definition on MSDN for WCHAR.