Hi,

>
So if you had a design surface that you wanted to draw a XOR'ed selection marquee then you don't feel that getting the display context from the MouseMove event and drawing to it is acceptable practice?
>

I wasn't concerned with how a DC is obtained, or when and what you choose to write to it. But if there is another window that is supposed to be 'on top' and it impinges on the area in which you are drawing it will be messed up. The issue was how you then correct this. AFAICS there are two options: invalidate it so that it repaints itself or handle it yourself. It seemed to me you were advocating a rather extreme version of the latter - i.e. re-creating it. For a tooltip this might be possible but, surely, slow; for most windows not an option.

Regards,
Viv