Can't use CreateProcess because of a build error: 'STARTUPINFO': undeclared identifier

Question

I am trying to start the process calc.exe with CreateProcess(...) .
When I am building the solution I received the error:
'STARTUPINFO': undeclared identifier

I am not understanding why.
The error is only when building the solution and the variable looks defined.
When pressing F12 on the variable it appears as:

Maybe it related to the #ifdef UNICODE ?

Full code:

// CppConsoleApp.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include "stdafx.h"

int main()
{
    STARTUPINFO info;
    PROCESS_INFORMATION processInfo;
    ZeroMemory(&info, sizeof(info));
    info.cb = sizeof(info);
    ZeroMemory(&processInfo, sizeof(processInfo));

    LPCWSTR path = L"C:\\Windows\\System32\\calc.exe";

    if (!CreateProcess(path, NULL, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &info, &processInfo))
    {
        printf("CreateProcess failed (%d).\n", GetLastError());
    }

    WaitForSingleObject(processInfo.hProcess, INFINITE);
    CloseHandle(processInfo.hProcess);
    CloseHandle(processInfo.hThread);

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

You need to put #include "stdafx.h" first of all.

Or turn off precompiled headers in the project settings to get standard C++'s preprocessing behavior.

With precompiled headers everything up to the include of the precompiled header, which in your case is "stdafx.h" , is ignored.

---

There is a warning about the situation you have, where includes are ignored. If you want to use precompiled headers in general, you should find that warning number and specify that it should be treated as an error.