INFO: Windows 95 Support for Network DDE

SUMMARY

Network DDE is a technology that allows applications that use the DDE transport to transparently exchange data over a network. It consists of two major components:

1. The NetDDE agent. This is a service that acts as a proxy for the remote DDE application. It communicates with all local DDE applications, and with remote NetDDE agents using NetBIOS as shown in this chart:

        Machine A                                        Machine B
      +-----------+                                   +-----------+
      |           |                                   |           |
      | DDE App 1 |                                   | DDE App 2 |
      |           |                                   |           |
      +-----------+                                   +-----------+
              ^ |                                        ^ |
              | |                                        | |
              | |                                        | |
              | |                                        | |
              DDE                                        DDE
          Conversation                               Conversation
              | |                                        | |
              | |                                        | |
              | V                                        | V
           +------+                                   +------+
           |NetDDE|                                   |NetDDE|
           | Agent| < ------ NetBIOS session ------ > | Agent|
           +------+                                   +------+

2. A DLL that implements NetDDE API functions such as NDdeShareAdd, NDdeShareDel, and so on. This DLL is usually named NDDEAPI.DLL.

In the interests of backwards compatibility, Windows 95 includes a NetDDE agent and a 16-bit NetDDE API DLL. However, Windows 95 does not include a 32-bit NetDDE API DLL. Consequently, 32-bit applications that use NetDDE API functions will need to thunk to the 16-bit NETAPI.DLL.