Is there a way to hide a window and still keep the message pump running?

How do you draw on the main menu bars background? Not the actual menu items themselves but the entire menu bar.

I probablly should have mentioned that this is for a toolbar control that only contains buttons.. It seems that when I call the base message processing I only get the one WM_PAINT message (for instance when the cursor is dragged over a button). If I don't call the base message processing I constantly get WM_PAINT messages.

I am trying to override the WM_PAINT message and I am continuously getting WM_PAINT messages. The basic code snippet is: protected override void WndProc(ref Message m) { if (m.Msg == WM_PAINT) { Trace.WriteLine(" WM_PAINT event"); m.Result = IntPtr.Zero; } else { base.WndProc(ref m); } } As I am planning to do all the drawing I don't want to call the base message processing for the WM_PAINT messages. Any ideas?