Program Loading .

Your question is confusing as to which platform you used when writing your code. First, you say it is C++, and then you refer to forms in C++, which implies managed C++. The answer would depend very much on whether or not it is the managed platform.

Anyway, the best answer that would be universal here is this: just search for Splash Screen articles on CP. There are plenty of them, covering every platform that exists, including MFC (that's what I suspect you meant).

I would provide a list of links here, but it would be just a very long list, given the platform uncertainty.

By visual studio forms I assume that you have created a Windows Forms application using C++/CLI.

Before trying anything else I would try the Native Image Generator (Ngen.exe)[^] - if you are really lucky this will be good enough.

Here is an article, A Pretty Good Splash Screen in C#[^], by Tom Clement - that shows how to create a splash screen for Windows Forms applications. It's c#, but it shows one way to create a splash screen.

To actually solve your problem, you need to create elements as needed, implementing some sort of lazy initialization for those parts that can be created after your program has started. The real performance hit occurs when the controls using your "large" resources are initialized.

Best regards
Espen Harlinn

The use of a splash screen helps the user to know that the program is in the process of starting. However, it does not absolutely prevent the user from starting multiple instances of the same application. If you want to avoid opening multiple instances of an application, read this article: Avoiding Multiple Instances of an Application[^].