Originally posted by Vlatko
Also when you get familiar with C++ go to windows programming. This is a great tutorial covereing the basics if that area:

http://www.winprog.org/tutorial
I would not suggest trying to learn windows programming until you're familiar with these things (among others):
pointers / arrays and the differences between them
structure packing
calling conventions
typedefs
function pointers (this is nasty )

Although if you've got them pretty much sorted after 2 hours learning...go for it! For the Windows API you don't really need classes, although they can help to simplify what you do.