Thanks very much indeed - moving the includes to the top of the list did the trick. Maybe in years to come I'll understand exactly what the linker is doing, when & why.... And thanks for all the other tips. I'm only using LPDIRECTDRAW4 because I'm cutting and pasting samples from an old Andre Lamothe book (Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus). I'll try updating it and thanks too for the link.:-D

I'm a complete beginner with C++. I'm trying to get some sample programs that use DirectX (specifically DDraw) to compile using VC++ 6, but it's making my head hurt. Is there an idiot's guide to exactly what I have to do set everything up? Or can someone help me? So far I've: Downloaded & installed DirectX SDK 10 Fired up VC++ 6 and: Tools\Options\Directories - added the \SDK\Include path to the "Include files" drop down & added the \SDK\x64 and \SDK\x86 paths to the "Library files" drop down Project\Settings\Link - added "ddraw.lib" to the "Object/Library modules" Obviously something's wrong though, as the sample I'm trying to compile comes back with a "error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'lpdd'" when it gets to the first of the list of externals ("extern LPDIRECTDRAW4 lpdd; ") I've combed the web to the best of my ability and there seems to be lots of advice on setting up Borland and DevC++ to use DirectX, but I can't find a word about Visual C - I assume I'm being stupid.