Background "skin" wont apply to my program

So when i use the AnimateWindow function when opening the program, the background image of the main program doesn't get displayed until the user has some interaction with the program, such as starting a new game.
Also, I'm trying to use WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC to make the static controls background transparent so i just have the text on top of the background image but when i try to execute it nothing happens (and by nothing, i mean it doesn't set the background color of the controls to transparent.)

Code:

---

for (i = 600; i <= 622; i++)
            {
                StaticDC = GetDC(GetDlgItem(hwnd, i));
                SendMessage(hwnd, WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC, (WPARAM)StaticDC, (LPARAM)i);
            }
...
        break;
...
        case WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC:
        {
            HDC hdc = (HDC)wParam;
            SetBkMode(hdc, TRANSPARENT);
            SetTextColor(hdc, RGB(0, 0, 0));
            return (LONG)g_hbrBackground;
        }

---

what am i doing wrong now? lol thanks

oooh yay :]

the code in this post worked for the static controls

Code:

---

for (i = 600; i <= 622; i++)
            {
                StaticDC = GetDC(GetDlgItem(hwnd, i));
                SendMessage(hwnd, WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC, (WPARAM)StaticDC, (LPARAM)i);
            }

---

You don't need to call the WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC. It doesn't do anything good (probably it is even bad). Windows calls WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC itself.