I am trying to develop a basic communicating link using windows sockets in visual studio.net2003... but it is showing an lnk2001 error.. is it necessary that have to get the platform SDK and install it before i can use winsock2.h????

You probably just need to incude the appropriate .lib in your studio project. Without the link error, I don't know which .lib...)

this is the link error it is showing:

Linking...
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "int __stdcall connect(unsigned int,struct sockaddr const *,int)" (?connect@@$$J212YGHIPBUsockaddr@@H@Z)
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "unsigned short __stdcall htons(unsigned short)" (?htons@@$$J14YGGG@Z)
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "unsigned long __stdcall inet_addr(char const *)" (?inet_addr@@$$J14YGKPBD@Z)
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "int __stdcall WSACleanup(void)" (?WSACleanup@@$$J10YGHXZ)
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "int __stdcall WSAGetLastError(void)" (?WSAGetLastError@@$$J10YGHXZ)
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "unsigned int __stdcall socket(int,int,int)" (?socket@@$$J212YGIHHH@Z)
a.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "int __stdcall WSAStartup(unsigned short,struct WSAData *)" (?WSAStartup@@$$J18YGHGPAUWSAData@@@Z)
H:\Project\work\aa\Debug\aa.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 7 unresolved externals

Build log was saved at "file://h:\Project\work\aa\aa\Debug\BuildLog.htm"
aa - 8 error(s), 0 warning(s)


pls help....

You have to link with:

Ws2_32.lib.

could u pls tell me how i do that.. i am a beginner so have lots to learn