Here is an example of such a routine pair. Now it's clear why the w . It stands for the interface to the Windows routine. The feature with the same name but without the w is the routine you should access as an application programmer from a VE program. Sometimes it is necessary to return a value.
Some routines take strings as arguments.
This could be a filename for example. This routine is used in the Hello World example of chapter 2. Only the most common import libraries are shipped with VE - advapi32.imp, comdlg32.imp, gdi32.imp and kernel32.imp. It seems that there is no difference between the .lib and the .imp files. If you have just the .lib file you can copy it to the Visual Eiffel bin directory and give it a .imp extension.