WWSAPI is a native-code implementation of SOAP Web Services for both Windows client and server endpoints.   WWSAPI provides core network communication and distributed computing functionality by supporting a sub-set of the WS-* protocols.   A designer might choose to implement solutions using WWSAPI given the following requirements, for example:

  • A native code only mandate
  • Minimal library or component dependencies
  • Minimal tolerance for endpoint service startup times
  • Minimal runtime process working set
  • Per process memory constraints
  • Avoidance of native/managed interop scenarios
  • Easy to WS-* enable a legacy native service or solution-domain library

Until now, the WWSAPI runtime library (i.e. "WebServices.dll") has only been available on beta Windows 7 (the client) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (the server).   Developing for either client or server endpoints required the pre-release Windows 7 SDK to access the "WebServices.h" header file.

Now, WWSAPI has been back-ported to include support for XP, Server 2003, Vista, and Server 2008.   WWSAPI is still not officially released and is made available as a beta version only.  

You can obtain the build and runtime components of WWSAPI at the Microsoft Connect website:  http://connect.microsoft.com/WNDP/content/content.aspx?ContentID=11205

Learn more about WWSAPI via Nikola Dudar's blog or via MSDN Code Gallery.