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Winsock OS Design Development (Windows CE 5.0)

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Windows Sockets (Winsock) is a programming interface that is based on the familiar socket interface from the University of California at Berkeley. Winsock includes extensions designed to take advantage of the message-driven nature of Windows CE, and is used to discover and use communications capabilities of underlying transport protocols.

Most Windows CE network communication passes through the Winsock interface. Windows CE .NET 4.1 and later supports Winsock 2.2, which provides easier access to multiple transport protocols.

Following the Windows Open System Architecture (WOSA) model, Winsock defines a standard service provider interface (SPI) between the application programming interface (API) and the protocol stacks. Winsock 2.2, with its functions exported from Ws2.dll, is not limited to TCP/IP protocol stacks as is the case for Winsock 1.1.

OS Design Information

The following table shows operating system design information for Winsock.

Element Information
Dependencies None
Hardware considerations None

Modules and Components

The following table shows the components and modules that implement Winsock.

Item Module Component
Winsock 2.2 ws2, ws2instl, wspm, nspm None

Winsock Implementation Considerations

The following table shows the Sysgen variable that implements Winsock support.

Sysgen variable Description
SYSGEN_WINSOCK When this variable is set, the Winsock Catalog item is included in the OSdesign.

Application Development Topics

Windows Sockets

Winsock 2.2

Winsock Service Provider Interface (SPI)

Winsock Reference

Winsock SPI Reference

Operating System Development Topics

Windows CE Modules and Components

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