The following example opens the waveform-audio device by specifying a waveform-audio file named "TIMPANI.WAV".
UINT wDeviceID;
DWORD dwReturn;
MCI_OPEN_PARMS mciOpenParms;
// Opens a waveform-audio device by specifying the device and filename.
mciOpenParms.lpstrDeviceType = "waveaudio";
mciOpenParms.lpstrElementName = "timpani.wav";
if (dwReturn = mciSendCommand(NULL, MCI_OPEN,
MCI_OPEN_TYPE | MCI_OPEN_ELEMENT, (DWORD)(LPVOID) &mciOpenParms))
// Error, unable to open device.
// The device opened successfully; get the device ID.
wDeviceID = mciOpenParms.wDeviceID;