As far as I am aware, a modal dialog disables the owner window but does not affect other independent windows of the application. I must get a clever new signature for 2011.

Try to subclass the window, and ignore WM_PAINT messages until column resizing is done. Good luck -Waldemar

Sorry, I don't understand the relationship with your OP :( When the wise (person) points at the moon the fool looks at the finger (Chinese proverb)

Thanks Alain for your reply! Maybe I should describe what I want to achieve: I want to subclass a child window and pre-handle certain messages in my class before the child window can process them itself. I thought CContainedWindow was the way to go then? In the particular case I want to set the background colour of the window. Happy coding, Philipp Kursawe

Thanks Alain, this works (almost)! I am using your WTL::CControlDialogImpl to show the listbox in a modal dialog. The drawing is a little off now. void OnDrawItem(int nIDCtl, LPDRAWITEMSTRUCT item) if (item->itemID == -1) return; WTL::CDCHandle dc(item->hDC); dc.GradientFillRect(item->rcItem, RGB(200,200,200), RGB(10,10,10), false); if (item->itemState == ODS\_FOCUS) { dc.SetTextColor(RGB(255,255,255)); } else { dc.SetTextColor(RGB(255,255,255)); } WCHAR text\[1024\]; int chars = m\_Ctrl.GetText(item->itemID, text); dc.SetBkMode(TRANSPARENT); dc.SelectFont(font); dc.DrawText(text, chars, &item->rcItem, DT\_NOPREFIX | DT\_SINGLELINE | DT\_CENTER | DT\_VCENTER | DT\_END\_ELLIPSIS); } After some rows the gradients stop to show up and the background is just the standard window color. Happy coding, Philipp Kursawe