An application can query and set the highlighted and checked states of its buttons by sending messages to them. An application can obtain the handle of a button by calling WinWindowFromID, using the parent window handle and the identifier of the button. In the case of a dialog window, the parent window would be the dialog window, and the identifier would be the button identifier from the dialog template.

Button-control text is stored as window text. An application can set and retrieve this text by using the WinSetWindowText and WinQueryWindowText functions. To set the size, position, and visibility of a button control, an application uses the standard window functions.