Keystroke messages provide a lot of information about keystrokes, but they don't provide character codes for character keystrokes. To retrieve character codes, an application must include the TranslateMessage function in its thread message loop. TranslateMessage passes a WM_KEYDOWN or WM_SYSKEYDOWN message to the keyboard layout. The layout examines the message's virtual-key code and, if it corresponds to a character key, provides the character code equivalent (taking into account the state of the shift and caps lock keys). It then generates a character message that includes the character code and places the message at the top of the message queue. The next iteration of the message loop removes the character message from the queue and dispatches the message to the appropriate window procedure.