ok, back in the day, the visual basic days, all you had to do is drag and drop a timer onto the form (window). now i''m using c++ and i have no idea how to use timers. is there any way i can make a program with a timer that triggered every 60 seconds? this timer also has to be running in the background...in other words, the timer has to be counting down the seconds WHILE my programming is still running other functions. -mike

What you''d need to do is call the SetTimer function

Here''s how you use it.
SetTimer(hwnd, TIMER_ID, 60000, NULL);

hwnd = handle of the application''s window
TIMER_ID = integer variable that will hold the timer''s ID
60000 = 60 seconds(timer inverval, in miliseconds)
NULL = callback function(check the SDK on how to implement this)

That should solve your problem

or you could use good ol'' GetTickCount.
DWORD time;
time=GetTickCount();
this gets an acurate measure of the time in milliseconds. to convert to seconds shouldn''t be too hard.
if(time%1000==1)
seconds++;
or something like that

I forgot to mention that you need to make a starting time.
DWORD start_time;
DWOR time;
start_time=GetTickCount();
while(!done)
{
time=GetTickCount()-start_time;
...
}