title: Windows function ChoosePixelFormat returns ERR_OLD_WIN_VERSION on windows 7
body: <p>I'm trying to teach myself the win32 API by making a window and attaching an OpenGL context to it.  In order to fetch the appropriate pixel format a call to ChoosePixelFormat must be made which should return a pixel format that the system supports and best meets my needs.  When I check for errors everything goes smoothly until this function is called which stops execution and logs error 1150-ERR_OLD_WIN_VERSION which is supposed to mean that my version of windows does not support this function.  This is obviously not the case and msdn confirms that this function runs on all versions of windows since windows 2000.  Right now I'm running windows 7 x64 on my desktop and I made sure my video driver and os were fully updated.  Lots of people seem to have had trouble with the pixel format functions but I have not found any with my problem so I decided to post here for help.  Here is my full code; I have not tested it on any machines other than my own.</p>
  
  <p>WinMain.cpp  (the only non-default msvc lib this is linked with is opengl32.lib)</p>
  
  <pre><code>#include"Display.h"
  #include&lt;iostream&gt;
  #include&lt;fstream&gt;
  
  MSG message;
  DWORD error;
  int status;
  
  LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWindow, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
  {   switch(message)
      {case WM_CREATE:
          return 0;
      case WM_DESTROY:
          PostQuitMessage(0);
          return 0;
      case WM_KEYDOWN:
          switch(wParam)
          {case VK_ESCAPE:
              PostQuitMessage(0);
              return 0;}}
      return DefWindowProc(hWindow, message, wParam, lParam);}
  
  int MainLoop(Display d)
  {
      while((status = PeekMessage(&amp;message, d.hWindow, 0, 0, PM_REMOVE)) != 0)
      {
          if (status == -1)
          {
              return -1;
          }
          DispatchMessage(&amp;message);
      }
      return 0;
  }
  
  int CALLBACK WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
  {
      std::ofstream file("log.txt", std::ios::trunc);
  
  
      Display window("TEST", hInstance, WndProc, 50, 50, 50, 50, NULL, NULL);
      if(window.status == -1)
      {   error = GetLastError();
          file &lt;&lt; error;
          return 1;}
  
      ShowWindow(window.hWindow, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
      EnableWindow(window.hWindow, true);
      MainLoop(window);
  
      return 0;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Display.h  (problem occurs in the class constructor)</p>
  
  <pre><code>#include &lt;Windows.h&gt;
  
  class Display   
  {public:
      Display(const char*, HINSTANCE, WNDPROC, int, int, int, int, DWORD, DWORD);
      ~Display();
      HWND hWindow;
      int status;
  private:
      WNDCLASSEX data;
      HDC hDeviceContext;
      HGLRC hGLContext;
      PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR PFD;
      int x, y, width, height;};
  Display::Display(const char* title, HINSTANCE InstanceHandle, WNDPROC WindowProcedure, int ScreenPositionX, int ScreenPositionY, int WindowWidth, int WindowHeight, DWORD StyleFlags, DWORD ExtendedStyleFlags)
  {   data.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
      data.style = CS_OWNDC;
      data.lpfnWndProc = WindowProcedure;
      data.cbClsExtra = 0;
      data.cbWndExtra = 0;
      data.hInstance = InstanceHandle;
      data.hIcon = NULL;
      data.hCursor = NULL;
      data.hbrBackground = NULL;
      data.lpszMenuName = NULL;
      data.lpszClassName = "WIN1"; 
      data.hIconSm = NULL;
      RegisterClassEx(&amp;data);
      hWindow = CreateWindowEx(ExtendedStyleFlags, data.lpszClassName, title, StyleFlags | WS_CLIPSIBLINGS | WS_CLIPCHILDREN, x = ScreenPositionX, y = ScreenPositionY, width = WindowWidth, height = WindowHeight, NULL, NULL, InstanceHandle, NULL);
      PFD.nSize = sizeof(PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR);
      PFD.nVersion = 1;
      PFD.iPixelType = PFD_TYPE_RGBA;
      PFD.iLayerType = PFD_MAIN_PLANE;
      PFD.dwVisibleMask = 0;
      PFD.dwLayerMask = 0;
      PFD.dwDamageMask = 0;
      PFD.dwFlags = PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW | PFD_DOUBLEBUFFER | PFD_SUPPORT_OPENGL;
      PFD.cAuxBuffers = 0;
      PFD.bReserved = 0;
      PFD.cColorBits = 24;
      PFD.cAccumBits = 0;
      PFD.cDepthBits = 32;
      PFD.cStencilBits = 0;
      PFD.cAlphaBits = 0;
      PFD.cAccumAlphaBits = 0;
      PFD.cAlphaShift = 0;
      PFD.cBlueBits = 0;
      PFD.cAccumBlueBits = 0;
      PFD.cBlueShift = 0;
      PFD.cGreenBits = 0;
      PFD.cAccumGreenBits = 0;
      PFD.cGreenShift = 0;
      PFD.cRedBits = 0;
      PFD.cAccumRedBits = 0;
      PFD.cRedShift = 0;
      hDeviceContext = GetDC(hWindow);
      int pf = ChoosePixelFormat(hDeviceContext, &amp;PFD); //throws error 1150, next three throw error 2000 because of this failing
      SetPixelFormat(hDeviceContext, pf, &amp;PFD);
      hGLContext = wglCreateContext(hDeviceContext);
      wglMakeCurrent(hDeviceContext, hGLContext);
      if(GetLastError() != ERROR_SUCCESS)
          {status = -1;}
      else
          {status = 0;}
      return;}
  Display::~Display()
  {   wglMakeCurrent(NULL, NULL);
      wglDeleteContext(hGLContext);
      DestroyWindow(hWindow);
      UnregisterClass(data.lpszClassName, data.hInstance);}
  </code></pre>