ive been toying around with CreateWindowEx in NeHe's lesson 1 code to see if i can get the window to display just a quad with a transparent background. the only thing i figured i could do was plug that value into the CreateWindowEx function. obviously nothing happens because i get a black window with a white quad. what else needs to be changed? any ideas?

Look up layered windows. WS_EX_TRANSPARENT is only for showing through windows created by the same thread.

You might also be able to use window regions to get the effect you want.