Thanks you alot. This is the Answer. Without overriding this function, the NM_RETURN or WM_KEYDOWN wont get sent, and you need to both Press Mouse button AND Enter key to have those messages sent. With this overrided function, you only need to press Enter key. One more note I found useful is that: If u r not using CListView, but have a Pane (DockablePane) who is the parent of the CListCtrl; and you want the Pane to handle Notify Messages from the CListCtrl. The best way to do is: 1) Override your CListCtrl, and handle ON_NOTIFY_REFLECT_EX( notifyMessage, memFunction) (notifyMessage could be NM_RETURN) 2) In memFunction, just return FALSE. Which allows this notifyMessage will be handled in other places as well( for ex CListView's Parent). 3) In the Parent class (DockablePane), handle ON_NOTIFY(notifyMessage, ChildID, memFunction) Thanks you