Networking APIs

Windows implements multiple networking APIs to provide support for legacy applications and compatibility with industry standards. In this section, we’ll briefly look at the networking APIs and describe how applications use them. It’s important to keep in mind that the decision about which API an application uses depends on characteristics of the API, such as which protocols the API can layer over, whether the API supports reliable or bidirectional communication, and the API’s portability to other Windows platforms the application might run on. We’ll discuss the following networking APIs:

  • Windows Sockets (Winsock)

  • Winsock Kernel

  • Remote procedure call (RPC)

  • Web access APIs

  • Named pipes and mailslots

  • NetBIOS

  • Other networking APIs

Windows Sockets ...

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