Networking and web services

Windows provides networking APIs for common scenarios such as making HTTP requests, working with WebSockets for real-time communication, and using TCP/UDP sockets for custom protocols. The primary APIs are in the Windows.Networking.Sockets and Windows.Web.Http namespaces — these are Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIs that work in both UWP and WinUI 3 (Windows App SDK) desktop apps. WinUI 3 apps targeting .NET can also use System.Net.Http.HttpClient for HTTP requests.

The following networking and web services technologies are available for Windows developers.

Topic	Description
Networking basics	Things you must do for any network-enabled app.
Which networking technology?	An overview of the networking technologies available for a Windows developer, with suggestions on how to choose the technologies that are right for your app.
Network communications in the background	To continue network communication while your app runs in the background, use background tasks and either socket broker or control channel triggers.
Sockets	Sockets are a low-level data transfer technology on top of which many networking protocols are implemented. Windows offers TCP and UDP socket classes for client-server or peer-to-peer applications, whether connections are long-lived or an established connection is not required.
WebSockets	WebSockets provide a mechanism for fast, secure, two-way communication between a client and a server over the web using HTTP(S), and supporting both UTF-8 and binary messages.
HttpClient	Use Windows.Web.Http namespace API to send and receive information using the HTTP 2.0 and HTTP 1.1 protocols.
RSS/Atom feeds	Retrieve or create the most current and popular Web content using syndicated feeds generated according to the RSS and Atom standards using features in the Windows.Web.Syndication namespace.
Background transfers	Use the background transfer API to copy files reliably over the network.