The Microsoft Foundation Class Library includes an exception-handling mechanism, similar to the one in the proposed ANSI C++ standard, for handling “abnormal conditions.” An abnormal condition is defined as a condition outside the program's control that influences the outcome of a function. Abnormal conditions include low memory, I/O errors, and attempted use of an unsupported feature. They do not include programming errors or “normally expected” conditions such as end of file.
For exception-processing examples and a more detailed explanation of error categories, see Chapter 13, “Exceptions,” in the Class Libraries User's Guide. For a detailed description of the functions and macros available, see Chapter 5 of this book, “Exception Processing.”