The Windows Sockets application program interface (API) specification was created by a group of companies, including Microsoft, in an effort to standardize the TCP/IP suite of protocols for the Windows operating system. Prior to Windows Sockets, each vendor developed their own proprietary libraries, and although they all had similar functionality, the differences were significant enough to cause problems for the software developers that used them. The biggest limitation was that, upon choosing to develop against a specific vendor's library, the developer was "locked" into that particular implementation. A program written against one vendor's product would not work with another's. Windows Sockets was offered as a solution, leaving developers and their end-users free to choose any vendor's implementation with the assurance that the product will continue to work.

There are two general approaches that you can take when creating a program that uses Windows Sockets. One is to code directly against the API, which requires learning how to make direct API calls to the system and how the Interop features of the .NET framework function. The other is to use a component (class library) like SocketTools which provides a higher-level interface by setting properties, calling methods and responding to events. This can provide a more natural programming interface, and it allows you to avoid much of the error-prone drudgery commonly associated with sockets programming. By simply referencing SocketTools in a project, setting some properties, calling a few methods and responding to events, you can quickly and easily write an Internet-enabled application.

SocketTools .NET provides a comprehensive interface to the networking subsystem that is powerful and flexible enough to build virtually any kind of application, yet doesn't have a steep learning curve for those developers who aren't experienced network programmers. In general, we believe that you'll be able to use SocketTools to write software for the Internet faster and easier than the native socket class that's part of the .NET framework.