The SocketWrench .NET Edition is a managed code class that simplifies the task of developing TCP/IP networking applications in Visual Studio .NET using any of the available programming languages such as Visual Basic and C#.

SocketWrench is the ideal solution for the programmer who requires the abilities and functionality of the native socket classes without the complexity of network programming.

The class provides a comprehensive interface that makes it easy to build both client and server applications, with full support for the TCP and UDP protocols as well as raw sockets.

SocketWrench also includes support for secure, encrypted connections using the industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols.

The SocketWrench .NET class interface has properties, methods and events that are very similar to the control that you've used in languages like Visual Basic 6.0.

It is important to keep in mind that SocketWrench .NET is a managed code class, not a wrapper around the ActiveX control, so there will be some inherent differences.

Here are some key features of "SocketWrench .NET Edition":

· Managed code class written in C#, compatible with any .NET language
· An interface that is very similar to the SocketWrench COM interface
· Low resource utilization and no external dependencies on third-party libraries
· Simplifies the development of networking applications
· Support for both synchronous and asynchronous network connections
· Easily create both secure client and server applications
· Support for the standard SSL and TLS security protocols with 128-bit encryption
· Support for client certificates when required by the remote host
· Support for both implicit and explicit SSL and TLS connections
· Thread-safe implementation with full support for multithreaded applications
· An extensive Developer's Guide and online Technical Reference
· A professional technical support staff and extensive online support resources
· No runtime licensing fees or additional royalties

Requirements:

· Intel Pentium processor (or compatible)
· 128MB RAM
· 15 MB disk space

Limitations:

· 30 days trial

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· New Internet Server ActiveX control and .NET class which enables developers to easily create multi-threaded, event-driven server applications. For more information, refer to the documentation for the InternetServer control.
· Updated for full compatibility with the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 platforms, supporting the new security model and TCP/IP stack. It is recommended that applications which target these platforms upgrade to the current version.
· Core networking code updated to use Windows Sockets 2.2 API and removed all previous dependencies on the Windows Sockets 1.1 and deprecated TCP/IP stack in unsupported versions of Windows. SocketWrench is only supported on Windows 2000 and later platforms.
· Redesigned the memory management code used to allocate buffers and internal socket data structures, improving performance and reducing overhead when multiple sessions are created in a multithreaded application.
· Improved the performance of the ReadStream and WriteStream methods under certain high-latency conditions when reading or writing large blocks of data.
· Corrected a problem with the Peek method in the SocketWrench ActiveX control and the InetPeek function in the library where it did not function similarly to the Read method and InetRead function, respectively. This could yield unexpected results because it ignored the blocking state of the socket. The Peek method and InetPeek function will now cause the current thread to block if a blocking socket is being used.
· The ReadEx and WriteEx methods in the SocketWrench ActiveX control has been deprecated and should no longer be used. The Read and Write methods have been extended to support additional arguments.
· Added support for AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption for secure SSL/TLS connections on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.
· Updated the Developers Guide and Technical Reference and made improvements and corrections to the overall documentation.