Styles for "Static" windows

[Stewbond]

I am creating static text with the Win32 API. I've recently added a background to my parent window and I'd like to make the background for these child windows transparent. How can I do this?

Also, how can I change the font, text size or foreground color of the window?

This is how I am creating the static objects:

void StaticText::Create(string text, int Xpos, int Ypos, int Xsize, int Ysize, HWND parent, int ident)
{
    hwnd = CreateWindowEx(0,
	"Static", 
	text.c_str(), 
	WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE, 
	Xpos, Ypos, Xsize, Ysize, 
	parent, 
	(HMENU)ident, 
	NULL, 
	NULL);
}

Failed fix 1:
I've tried a few of the styles defined here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb760773(v=vs.85).aspx

The closest I could find was SS_WHITERECT, but this turns the background AND foreground white.

Failed fix 2:
I managed to enable the window 7 styles by doing the following, but it didn't help with my transparency issues:

#pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' "\
    "name='Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls' version='6.0.0.0' processorArchitecture='x86' "\
    "publicKeyToken='6595b64144ccf1df' language='*'\"") 

Failed fix 3:

1 2 3

hwnd = CreateWindowEx(... HDC hdc = GetDC(hwnd); SetBkMode(hdc,TRANSPARENT);

No effect

Failed fix 4:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

switch(msg) { //... case WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC: { SetBkMode((HDC)wParam, TRANSPARENT); return (LRESULT)GetStockObject(NULL_BRUSH); } }

This is so close. The backgrounds become transparent. But when I try to change the text, the old value isn't erased <- If ln 6 is commented out, everything is okay except for the background of the space used up by text (it doesn't affect the whole object).