HTML-Help window is not closing

Thank you very much both of you!

My problem is solved.

Smucker wrote: Another unrelated note: you can build applications compatible with Windows 98 & NT4 with any later version of Visual C++, you just have to be careful not to use any unsupported APIs or dlls, or provide code to dynamically bind for libraries/apis similarly to what you're doing in CheckHtmlHelp(). I believe Codejock has some helper routines to make this easier too.

You're right, I should switch to an actual version of Visual C++.
Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 have so many new features, I'm using 2008 already for new applications.
And it becomes more and more difficult to get third party development tools which still work with Visual C++ 6.0.

Here is some possible help:

I duplicated the problem here. The process is not exiting because of a deadlock. The main thread is in CXTPSkinObject::UnattachHook() waiting for a ::SendMessage() to the tab control in the Help window to complete. However, the thread trying to handle that message (in  CXTPSkinManager::HookWndProc() ) is waiting on a critical section owned by the main thread.

Here are the relevant stacks from the threads:

Main thread:
...
USER32.dll!_SendMessageW@16+0x7f
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinObject::UnattachHook+0x57
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManager::RemoveAll+0x98
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManager::~CXTPSkinManager+0xfb
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManager::`scalar deleting destructor'+0x2b
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManager::CDestructor::~CDestructor+0x62
thumbs8.exe!`dynamic atexit destructor for '__xtpSkinManagerDestructor''+0x28
thumbs8.exe!doexit+0x10a
thumbs8.exe!exit+0x12
...

Help thread:
...
ntdll.dll!_ZwWaitForSingleObject@12+0x15
ntdll.dll!_RtlpWaitOnCriticalSection@8+0x155
ntdll.dll!_RtlEnterCriticalSection@4+0x152
thumbs8.exe!CXTPLockGuard::LockThread+0x31
thumbs8.exe!CXTPLockGuard::CXTPLockGuard+0x33
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManager::Lookup+0x56
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManager::HookWndProc+0x2e
USER32.dll!_InternalCallWinProc@20+0x23
USER32.dll!_UserCallWinProcCheckWow@32+0x109
USER32.dll!_DispatchClientMessage@24+0xe0
USER32.dll!___fnDWORD@4+0x2b
ntdll.dll!_KiUserCallbackDispatcher@12+0x2e
USER32.dll!__PeekMessage@24+0x88
USER32.dll!_PeekMessageA@20+0x142
hhctrl.ocx!?AWMessagePump@@YGXPAUHWND__@@@Z+0x5c
hhctrl.ocx!_HhWindowThread@4+0x10e
thumbs8.exe!CXTPSkinManagerApiHook::ThreadProcHook+0x62
...

One simple solution, which also helps release builds of complex applications to exit quickly, is to simply TerminateProcess() once external resources (databases, writable files, sockets, etc.) are closed, rather than go through the many and various laborious cleanup routines for memory, handles, etc. However, I wouldn't recommend this on Windows 9x/ME because GDI handles, color profiles, and shared memory will leak.

Another unrelated note: you can build applications compatible with Windows 98 & NT4 with any later version of Visual C++, you just have to be careful not to use any unsupported APIs or dlls, or provide code to dynamically bind for libraries/apis similarly to what you're doing in CheckHtmlHelp(). I believe Codejock has some helper routines to make this easier too.

Hi,