OK, I'll put that in my pipe and smoke it :)
>I have heard good and bad things. I wrote some software for a McDonalds application that used the winsock for communication and it worked pretty reliably. Also I wrote a product using the Winsock control as one of its choices for communication in a product that is being used throughout the world for interfacing with LED display boards. So for me I trust it to handle the basic tasks.