Escape Key

How can I detect when the Escape Key has been pressed when the focus is set to a child window, in my case an Edit Control?

I've tried WM_KEYDOWN and WM_CHAR but once the user starts typing in the edit box, the WM_KEYDOWN and WM_CHAR messages dont seem to be generated? or at least not to the main window.

Unfortunately, you can't get that data from the child window. You will need to override the control and subclass it to the child window. Then you can parse messages in the PreTranslateMessage function in your overrided control.