Don't forget `WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN`! Still no idea what that does/did.

For those curious about WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN - it reduces compile time by not auto-including a number of windows headers: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091130-00/?p=15...

Do you mean VC_EXTRALEAN? Or is WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN also a thing?

First time I hear of VC_EXTRALEAN, always used WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN.

The bad news is that WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN has no effect, you have to define VC_EXTRALEAN if you want to exclude extra stuff from the MFC and VC headers.

The good news is also that it has no effect. :)

You can verify this for yourself by grepping the Visual Studio headers for VC_EXTRALEAN and WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN.

But it did in 2005?

> VC_EXTRALEAN defines WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN and a number of NOservice definitions, such as NOCOMM and NOSOUND.

> https://gamedev.net/forums/topic/367942-win32_lean_and_mean-...

WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN != WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN

As always, Raymond Chen wrote about it! https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091130-00/?p=15...

Its also my favorite btw.

We've had to use this at my work a couple times. I forget the exact reasoning, but IIRC if you're using including parts of the Win32 API, you get some things that would stomp on C or C++ names, which is bad. Macros like that one prevent loading things you don't want.

One example was min and max - Win32 includes those which messes with trying to use std::min and std::max.

There's NOMINMAX, NOGDI, etc. for that.

not only min, max, other "fun" ones to debug are "near", "far", "small"

I think we had to use that when importing FDI.h (the CAB-extracting part of winapi) to avoid it bringing more legacy cruft.

I've always been a fan of _CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS, personally.

Probably because you're the same generation as the dude at MS, whereas you want the kids at Github to get off your lawn?