About how hard it is on earth for learning MFC, this should vary from person to person. If you are experienced programmers started from the base Windows OS, you'd likely have been a member of programmers developing the MFC class libraries; on the contrary, if you just have learned few years of Windows programming, then you may have not any knowledge on the underlying system. In the latter case, you must have one book on your desk for reference anytime (every technology needs this). For MFC, it will be Programming Windows with MFC.