The Windows Sockets specification does not mandate that a Windows Sockets DLL support raw sockets, that is, sockets opened with SOCK_RAW. However, a Windows Sockets DLL is allowed and encouraged to supply raw socket support. A Windows Sockets-compliant application that wishes to use raw sockets should attempt to open the socket with the socket() call (see section 4.1.23), and if it fails either attempt to use another socket type or indicate the failure to the user.