Get these books:
Windows++ Code Library
^-- Read this first. There are some chapters that can be totally ignored because it's for 16-bit windows but overall it's probably the best book for learning windows.
Amazon.com: Windows Internals: The Implementation of the Windows Operating Environment (The Andrew Schulman Programming Series): Books: Matt Pietrek
^-- Another 16-bit windows book, but it's very useful because you can tell why some stupid things are the way they are.
Windows Graphics Programming: Win32 GDI and DirectDraw
^-- This book is an amazing reference to GDI. It covers everything you need to know and more.
Amazon.com: Advanced Windows: Books: Jeffrey Richter
^-- This book covers a broad area of windows like threads, memory management, manipulating processes, etc.
I also found these books helpful but you should just deal with the above first before you go on:
Amazon.com: MFC Internals: Inside the Microsoft(c) Foundation Class Architecture: Books: George Shepherd,Scot Wingo Amazon.com: Debugging Applications: Books: John Robbins Amazon.com: Win32 System Services: The Heart of Windows 98 and Windows 2000, Third Edition (Book Only): Books: Marshall Brain,Ron Reeves wine identfier search
^-- Source code to WINE. Comes in handy often because Microsoft's documentation is complete garbage
The Code Project - Free Source Code and Tutorials
^-- Lots of random sample code
Edit: Whoops, I skipped the part where it says you don't know C++. Here is how I suggest getting up to speed from college level C to intermediate C++ quickly:
Amazon.com: Expert C Programming: Books: Peter van der Linden Amazon.com: Inside the C++ Object Model: Books: Stanley B. Lippman
^-- read these two and then mess around with template metaprogramming on your own.
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg...docs/n1124.pdf http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg...2006/n2134.pdf
^-- these are the latest draft standards for C and C++. It's the actual reference for how C and C++ really work. Most of what you have been taught about them at school, books, or in tutorials are most likely wrong in various ways. Read random parts when you're bored and have some free time to kill.