Welcome to Network Programming for Microsoft Windows, Second Edition! The second edition covers the same topics as the first edition and even more as well. This book primarily focuses on the Winsock network programming technology. In particular, we've added a chapter on writing high-performance, scalable Winsock applications and a chapter devoted to Winsock programming in the C# programming language using the exciting new .NET Application Frameworks library. In addition, we've completely updated the chapter on the Windows Service Provider Interface (SPI), and we cover additional protocols (such as IPv6 and reliable multicasting) and reveal functionality that is new to Windows XP.

This book covers a wide variety of networking functions available in Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows CE. The majority of the text covers intermediate and advanced networking topics, but we retooled the Winsock section so that it is more accessible to programmers of all levels.