Yeah, see my account a few pages back of trying to get a simple Websocket server in C++ working. Took an entire dang day. If you're new to C++ programming then it's probably going to be a big hassle. Coding on Windows makes that a double hassle since most of the free libraries are written on Linux and without a care in the world if it works on Windows.
The theory is that a library gives you a bunch of useful functions you can call without having to write them. The practice is that you spend just as much time trying to get it to compile and / or link, then figuring out how to use it and lastly working around the fact that it only does 90% of what you needed and in a weird way.
I don't know how to do cursor placement and stuff with Windows' command shell, and knowing the Win32 API, it's probably a big pain in the butt. The things you'll want to try Googling for would be disabling echoing (to remove user input showing up on the screen) and cursor placement to avoid redrawing entire screens and causing tearing or flickering. I don't know how you get input without requiring enter, but I think maybe the C standard library getch function does that? I don't think I've ever used it, to be honest.
Whenever I've coded anything interactive like that on Windows, I coded it as a Win32 subsystem program rather than a console program. That means writing a Windows message pump, which makes getting input like you want somewhat straightforward. On the other hand, a Windows message pump is a huge thing to learn if you're new to anything but console applications. I also don't know if you can attach something like that to a console application, but maybe you can. I know you can open console windows in such a program, but it's pretty amusing how complicated that is if memory serves.