Are all networking connections using winsock? eg. AOL Instant messenger, MSN, and in games eg. red alert, red alert 2, counter strike... also is there anything other than winsock? im going to learn winsock but am just curious as to what else is out there.

most of the games are winsock based. the programs you mentioned all use winsock, but not all games use it. its most commonly used mainly due to its simplicity, control, and widespread system compatibility (my opinion anyway). the other alternative (as far as i know) is DirectPlay. AGe of Empires (1/2) have this as an option to TCP/IP Winsock. however, since i have never used DirectPlay (only TCP/IP using Winsock), i can''t tell you how it compares to winsock.

I made an ATL wrapper one time so I could use it in a VB project. I ended up having to write a lot of special code to make it behave like I wanted to. This was all code that I would have also had to write if I did the whole thing in plain Winsock. The benifit I could see is iteration of devices and setup. Besides that, I still prefer to just write everything myself using winsock.