In order to use Boost.WinAPI you have to include one or several headers from the boost/winapi directory. Each header there defines a portion of Windows API, the name of the header should be self-explanatory. Each Boost.WinAPI header may declare a number of symbols like functions and types in the global namespace, mimicking the Windows SDK, and the corresponding set of symbols in the boost::winapi namespace. User's code is supposed to use the symbols from the boost::winapi namespace only.

Most of the functions in the boost::winapi have the same name and meaning as the corresponding Windows API functions. Types and constants have a trailing underscore ('_') in their name to avoid clashes with macros that are defined in Windows SDK.

	Note
	Boost.WinAPI does not define function-name macros that expand to the char or wchar_t based functions depending on the UNICODE macro. Boost.WinAPI also does not support _TCHAR and related string types. Users have to explicitly use the *A or *W functions with appropriate argument types. Note however that *A functions may not be available if BOOST_NO_ANSI_APIS is defined.

For example, here is how one would create and destroy a semaphore with Boost.WinAPI:

#include <limits>
#include <boost/winapi/handles.hpp>
#include <boost/winapi/semaphore.hpp>

boost::winapi::HANDLE_ h = boost::winapi::CreateSemaphoreExW(
    NULL,                                                        // security attributes
    0l,                                                          // initial count
    std::numeric_limits< boost::winapi::LONG_ >::max(),          // max count
    L"Local\\MySemaphore",                                       // semaphore name
    0l,                                                          // flags
    boost::winapi::SEMAPHORE_ALL_ACCESS_                         // access mode
);

if (h)
    boost::winapi::CloseHandle(h);

Refer to MSDN for documentation on the particular functions, types and constants.