Winsock Architecture

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Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3

4/8/2010

The following illustration shows the architecture in Winsock 2.2.

• Applications and Services
  Services created by Independent software vendors (ISVs), carriers, and enterprises.

• Winsock
  A programming interface that provides enhanced capabilities over Winsock 1.1, including installable service providers for additional third-party protocols. Winsock 2.2 also provides protocol independent APIs that concurrently support IPv4 and IPv6 in applications.

• Transport Service Providers
  The following list shows the service provider types that are in Winsock 2.2:

  • Base Service Provider: Fully implements a protocol. For example, TCPv4 is fully implemented by the WSPM provider that ships with Windows Mobile. For more information about the built-in service providers that Windows Mobile provides, see Winsock Service Provider Interface (SPI).
  • Layered Service Provider (LSP): Modifies a transport service provider, and therefore the protocol that it implements, to expand, restrict, or redirect its capabilities. For example, the SSL LSP is in the layer above the WSPM provider in what is called a provider chain. This LSP encrypts and decrypts data before it calls into WSPM. WSPM then sends and receives data using the TCP protocol. You can implement an LSP to extend an existing transport service provider. For more information, see Winsock Service Providers and Layered Protocols and Provider Chains.

• NDIS
  The standard network driver architecture for all Windows-based OSes.

Winsock supports third-party extensions. If these extensions do not use proper security and authentication procedures, they can compromise the security of a device or local network.

See Also

Concepts

Winsock Support in Windows Mobile
Layered Protocols and Provider Chains

Other Resources

Winsock Application Development