I'm new to assembly (much more used to working with C#), but I've decided to see if I can learn it and get more of an idea of what my computer does under the hood.
My question is, when programming on Windows, do I have to use the win32 libraries? For example, if I want to output, say, "A" in a console window, is there a "generic" way to do it, or do I have to call win32? Or am I completely off on how it works?
You don't have to use Win32 unless you need something that Win32 does. I don't believe there is any level more primitive than Win32 for doing things like outputting to the console, for instance.