Windows named pipes in practice

Question

With Windows named pipes, what is the proper way to use the CreateNamedPipe, ConnectNamedPipe, DisconnectNamedPipe, and CloseHan

Answer 1

I have managed to achieve what I wanted. I call CreateNamedPipe and CloseHandle exactly once per session, and I call DisconnectNamedPipe when my write fails, followed by another ConnectNamedPipe.

The trick is to only call DisconnectNamedPipe when the pipe was actually connected. I called it every time I tried to connect "just to be sure" and it gave me strange errors.

See also djgandy's answer for more information about pipes.