If I had a program that was designed to perform a specific task (i.e. Generate a massive text file) that I want to run background without a window being displayed, how would I go about doing so?
Assuming that you're dealing with windows, Compile under the windows subsystem instead of console so a console isn't automatically allocated for you. Or perhaps something like:
#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0500
#include <windows.h>
int main()
{
// show output
// ...
ShowWindow(GetConsoleWindow(), SW_HIDE);
// begin processing...
// ...
// finished, show results:
ShowWindow(GetConsoleWindow(), SW_SHOW);
return 0;
}