Definition: WinSock is the standard sockets programming API for the Windows operating system. WinSock has been the standard sockets library shipped with all versions of Windows starting with Windows 95.
WinSock was created to allow different Microsoft Windows TCP/IP software applications to communicate. WinSock borrowed and expanded on the concept of sockets and socket programming first made popular on Unix computer systems in the 1980s. WinSock most closely matches the Berkeley implementation of Unix sockets.
Two major versions of WinSock exist for Windows. All implementations of WinSock are packaged in a single Windows dynamic-link library (DLL). The current version of Windows WinSock, version 2.2, is contained in the WS2_32.DLL library. Older Winsock version 1 libraries are named either WINSOCK.DLL or WSOCK32.DLL. Newer releases of Windows WinSock have retained backward compatibility with the older WinSock versions.
Also Known As: Windows Sockets
