Maybe that's what I need to try -- See if I can just use Qt to create the GL rendering context instead of doing it directly with Windows APIs. I suspect that to create a Qt context it expects to create its own windowing surface as well. So the question just migrates to, ok how do I create a Qt GL context attached to my own window I'll take a look at it and see what I can find. If that doesn't work then maybe I'd have to have Qt create the window for me which might get messy because currently MFC creates the window. Not impossible I guess. Time to see how far down the rabbit hole this will go!

Certainly for a new application (or if there was unlimited time and resources) just doing it all with Qt would be cleaner. I'm hoping I can leverage Qt for some snazzy GL rendering without some major conversion or overhaul of an existing app though.