Any reason to prefer memset/ZeroMemory to value initialization for WinAPI structs?

Question

In Win32 programming a handful of POD structs is used. Those structs often need to be zeroed out before usage.

This can be done by calling memset()/

Answer 1

The only reason to prefer memset/ZeroMemory for this kind of initialization is if WinAPI functions require/expect the memory to be initialized that way, i.e. if WinAPI functions expect their zeros to be physical zeros - values with all-zero bit patterns.

Keep in mind that the difference between a representation of a zero value of some type and physical all-zero-bit pattern depends on the compiler implementation, not on OS. In theory, a Windows compiler can use non-zero bit patterns to represent zero values of various types. Like, a null pointer might be represented by non-zero physical value in some imaginary C or C++ compiler for Windows. (Not that anyone would actually do that, of course).