How to create/set a gui without background?

[N_athan]

This is how it would look in case the background was correctly removed, nice edges and transparent background:

2022-01-24_03-58-54.gif (390.34 KiB) Viewed 394 times

There's nothing with moving controls, what I was pointing to is the result of drawing the controls on a GUI and setting it parent to the layered:

image.png (13.12 KiB) Viewed 394 times

The white background (the GUI background) gets merged with the picture.

[Hellbent]

There's nothing with moving controls, what I was pointing to is the result of drawing the controls on a GUI and setting it parent to the layered:

Sorry, your op made it sound like you wanted a rounded window with clean edges and your image had a opaque rounded rectangle not a semi-transparent one.

I don't think I know what you are trying to do other than that.

[teadrinker]

I would just create a layered window from the bitmap and an owned window with controls which moves with the owner.

[lmstearn]

Another thing to try is subclass the controls in order to draw and paint them the way you want- would it help if they were also flagged as layered windows?
Edit: There's a very interesting old thread on WS_EX_COMPOSITED, by the looks of it sure to solve some problems,- bound to uncover more.
Alternatively, re the above graphic in your last post- ditch the layering and go the direct composition way with something like wpf and use WS_EX_NOREDIRECTIONBITMAP, but that, like SetWindowRgn, bricks DWM for the window.