MSDN Documentation

Windows Networking Programming Guide

This guide provides comprehensive information and best practices for developing network-aware applications on the Windows platform. You'll find details on various networking technologies, protocols, and APIs available for Windows.

Core Concepts

Understanding the fundamental concepts of network communication is crucial for effective Windows network programming. This section covers:

• TCP/IP Protocol Suite
• Socket Programming
• Winsock (Windows Sockets API)
• Ports and Services
• IP Addresses and Hostnames

Building Network Applications

Learn how to design and implement various types of network applications:

Client-Server Applications

Develop robust client-server architectures using technologies like:

• TCP Sockets for reliable, connection-oriented communication.
• UDP Sockets for connectionless, datagram-based communication.

Example of a simple TCP server setup:

#include <winsock2.h>
#pragma comment(lib, "ws2_32.lib")

int main() {
    WSADATA wsaData;
    WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2, 2), &wsaData);

    SOCKET listenSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
    // ... bind, listen, accept ...

    WSACleanup();
    return 0;
}
                

Peer-to-Peer Applications

Explore patterns for direct communication between peers, often involving NAT traversal techniques.

Web Services and APIs

Integrate with web services using:

• HTTP Clients (WinHTTP, WinINet)
• RESTful APIs
• SOAP Services

Advanced Topics

Dive deeper into specialized areas:

Asynchronous I/O

Improve performance and responsiveness using asynchronous operations with:

• I/O Completion Ports (IOCP)
• Overlapped I/O

Asynchronous programming is key to scaling network applications to handle many concurrent connections efficiently.

Security Considerations

Secure your network applications with:

• TLS/SSL (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security)
• IPsec
• Authentication and Authorization

Network Protocols

Understand and implement various network protocols:

• HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2
• FTP
• DNS
• DHCP

Multithreading and Concurrency

Manage multiple network connections and operations concurrently using threads or asynchronous patterns.

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the foundational suite of protocols used for communication on the internet and local networks. Windows provides robust support for TCP/IP networking.

Socket Programming

Sockets provide an endpoint for sending or receiving data across a computer network. They are the primary interface for network communication in most operating systems, including Windows.

Winsock (Windows Sockets API)

Winsock is Microsoft's implementation of the Berkeley sockets API, providing a standard way for Windows applications to access network services. It's the core API for most network programming tasks on Windows.

Ports and Services

Network ports are logical endpoints on a host machine used to differentiate between different services or applications. Well-known ports (e.g., 80 for HTTP, 443 for HTTPS) are standardized.

IP Addresses and Hostnames

Every device on a network has an IP address. Hostnames (like www.microsoft.com) are human-readable names that are resolved to IP addresses by DNS (Domain Name System).