general.html

SDK FAQ集

<p>The other major source for 16-bit Winsock stacks is as part of a
"network suite", but these products are becoming extremely hard to
find. (Microsoft's free stacks coupled with shareware and freeware
applications have made this software category obsolete.)</p>

<p>Keep in mind that you can't copy a Winsock DLL to another machine and
expect it to work. You have to get and install a complete network stack,
including its proprietary Winsock layer.</p>






<a name="getws2"></a>
<h5>1.7 - Can I get Winsock 2 for...?</h5>

<p><b>...Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000?</b></p>

<p>These platforms already come with Winsock 2.</p>

<p><b>...Windows 95?</b></p>

<p>Windows 95 ships with Winsock 1.1, but you can get the
Winsock 2 SDK as part of the <a
href="http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/setuplauncher.htm">Windows
Platform SDK</a>. (Sorry, there's no longer a place where
you can get <i>just</i> the Winsock SDK.) You may also need the <a
href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/WURecommended/S_WUNetworking/dunwinsky2k/Default.asp">Winsock
2 Update</a> package; you will definitely need to tell your users about
this, if they wish to use your program on Windows 95.</p>

<p><b>...Windows 3.1? Windows NT 3.5x?</b></p>

<p>Unfortunately, Winsock 2 will not run on Windows 3.1 or Windows NT
3.51, so those users will have to upgrade to a newer operating system
or stick with Winsock 1.1. (See <a href="#ws2additions">above</a> for
a list of what Winsock 2 includes <img src="./bitmaps/waist-dot.gif" alt="-" width=7 height=6 hspace=2> you may not <i>need</i>
Winsock 2's advanced features for your application.)</p>





<a name="othersys"></a>
<h5>1.8 - Is there a version of Winsock for...?</h5>

<p><b>...DOS?</b><br>

<p>DOS cannot support Winsock, because Winsock depends greatly on Windows'
messaging and DLL mechanisms.</p>

<p>(Before I discuss alternatives to Winsock for DOS programmers, I want
to clear up a common confusion. Command-line windows under Windows
95/98/NT/2000 are sometimes called "DOS boxes". This is a historical term,
and is now inaccurate. In Win32, there's a new class of programs called
"console mode programs". These console mode programs run in these "DOS
boxes" and can look and feel like old DOS programs, but they can call
any Win32 function, including Winsock. Note for example that all of the
<a href=examples/index.html>examples</a> in the FAQ are console programs.)</p>

<p>Erick Engelke's <a
href="ftp://dark.uwaterloo.ca/pub/wattcp/index.html">Waterloo
TCP</a> package is a freeware TCP/IP stack that runs over
<a href="http://www.crynwr.com/">Crynwr</a>-style packet
drivers. I've used it myself, and it works very well. The <a
href="http://www.supro.com/wattcp.html">manual</a> is available
for $50; if you plan on using this package to develop serious
applications, trust me, this is a worthwhile investment. (If
you're just puttering around, you can probably figure things
out by messing around with the example programs.)</a>

<p>Another option is JSB's <a href="http://www.jsb.com/">Virtual Socket
Library</a>. It implements a common BSD sockets API for DOS, among
other systems. This is probably a better option than Waterloo TCP if you
need BSD sockets compatibility and multiplatform support. I've not used
it, though, so I can't actually endorse it.</p>

<p>NetManage (formerly FTP Software) offers the <a
href="http://www.netmanage.com/products/pctcpsdk/">PC/TCP Software
Development Kit</a> for DOS. This appears to be roughly the same thing as
the JSB product, but since I haven't used this library either, I won't
comment further on it.</p>

<p>Finally, Async Systems offers the <a
href="http://www.asyncsystems.com/tcpip.htm">Socket Library SDK</a>
for DOS. This is a pure BSD-sockets workalike for DOS, with a few
curious Winsock-isms like <code>closesocket()</code> instead of
<code>close()</code>. You can download it for a free 90-day
evaluation.</p>

<p>There is one other rather interesting alternative: the <a
href="http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Peaks/8523/">WSock
library</a> for the <a href="http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/">DJGPP</a>
compiler. This library accesses the wsock.vxd or wsock.386 driver
used by Microsoft's Windows for Workgroups 3.1 and Windows 95 Winsock
stacks. Naturally these drivers only work while Windows is running,
so you have to run such a DOS application in a DOS box. This method
does have a number of advantages: the DJGPP compiler is free, and the
fact that it lets you program a Winsock application without writing a
GUI can be a plus.</p>

<p>I personally dislike the WSock option unless you're stuck on
Windows 3.1 and can't buy a commercial compiler. If you can stipulate
that your program must run on Windows 95 or Windows NT, you can get
this same low overhead by writing a console mode program with the <a
href="http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/">Cygwin</a> tool set, which
is essentially the same thing as DJGPP except for Win32.</p>


<p><b>...Unix?</b><br>

<p>Essentially all Unixes offer the BSD sockets API for TCP/IP
programming, which is the ancestor of Winsock. Some older Unix versions
also offer a competing API called XTI (or TLI in its older form), which
is similar enough to Winsock and BSD sockets that you won't have much
trouble learning it if you know the sockets API.</p>


<p><b>...OS/2?</b><br>

<p>As of OS/2 Warp 4, OS/2 supports Winsock as well as its own sockets
API. The Winsock emulation is part of OS/2's Open32 API, and probably
conforms to Winsock 1.1. (Winsock 2 is probably too Win32-specific for
IBM to emulate it with any real degree of success.) OS/2's native sockets
API is based on pure Berkeley sockets; in a sense, then, you can have
a subset of Winsock without using the Open32 API. You mainly lose all
the functions that begin with "WSA".</p>

<p>OS/2 Warp 3.0 and earlier have extra-cost packages available that
add TCP/IP support, including some support for the Winsock API.</p>


<p><b>...NetWare?</b><br>

<p>NetWare has had Winsock support since September of 1998. It's included
in NetWare 5, and can be had for NetWare 4 in Support Pack 8. Novell has
a <a href="http://developer.novell.com/ndk/ws2comp.htm">porting guide</a>
that tells you what works and what doesn't in their implementation with
respect to Microsoft's.</p>


<p><b>...Win32s?</b><br>

<p>Win32s 1.1 contains a WSOCK32.DLL that thunks calls down to a 16-bit
WINSOCK.DLL, if present. I have successfully used Win32s to run 32-bit
Winsock programs over Trumpet Winsock and Microsoft's Wolverine stack.</p>


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