I thought I had tried getting C::B to work with Visual C++ 2005 Express and it didn't work
You have to choose the proper compiler in the project options first... (C::B will actually choose GCC as your default compiler, even if only VSC++ or another compiler is found. :roll: ) Then you have to add your folders into your global compiler and debugger setup for the platform SDK and DX DSK. You need the libs folder, and the includes folder. If you do that properly, there is nothing that can go wrong, or not work.
Go into COMPILER AND DEBUGGER under the SETTINGS options.
Then click on SEARCH DIRECTORIES
Under the compiler tab, you want the folders with the includes.. Here are my settings, but the actual folder names depends on which version of the SDKs you've got.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include
C:\Program Files\Microsoft DirectX SDK (April 2007)\Include
Then you have to go to the linker tab, and point to your lib directories. Once again, your actual folders might be different. You might be using the 64 bit DX SDK.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Lib
C:\Program Files\Microsoft DirectX SDK (April 2007)\Lib\x86
And then, you have to add the proper libraries as needed to your projects in their own compiler settings. If you got DX to work, you obviously know how to do this.