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I saw this quote on the Microsoft website:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/browsers/wininet-not-supported-in-services

In order to understand the limitations unique to using WinInet in a server environment, it is necessary to understand WinInet's history. WinInet was developed for use by Internet Explorer. In fact, to use later versions of WinInet, you must load a minimal installation of Internet Explorer.

I don't understand something: is WinInet a Windows API or an InternetExplorer API? An application written using WinInet without Internet Explorer itself - will it work?

Remy Lebeau
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Optimus1
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    Internet Explorer depends on WinInet, but WinInet does not depend on Internet Explorer. In fact, Microsoft has abandoned Internet Explorer in favor of Microsoft Edge, which uses a very different architecture, so it doesn't make sense for modern WinInet to require even a minimal Internet Explorer installation anymore. – Remy Lebeau Mar 08 '21 at 07:04
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    KB238425 is like than 20 years old. When they say that, they really are talking about he "shipping vehicle" ie: wininet was shipped with IE as a product, product which wasn't originally part of the OS (long story short). Technically IE depends on Wininet. – Simon Mourier Mar 08 '21 at 07:36
  • Remy Lebeau, does it mean that they have outdated information on their website? – Optimus1 Mar 08 '21 at 07:43
  • Simon Mourier, But the Microsoft page says the WinInet depends on the Internet Explorer.. Someone is wrong, or you or Microsoft. – Optimus1 Mar 08 '21 at 14:45
  • @Optimus1 You are looking at a page specifically about IIS and services, quoting the original [Q238425](https://web.archive.org/web/20070714164122/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/238425) which refers to "*IE 4.01 Sp2, 5.0 and 5.5*". – dxiv Mar 09 '21 at 03:20
  • Suppose I have a WinInet application. Is there any way to gain access to cookies created by the Edge browser. (E.g. to allow users to login using browser and then crawl from there) – Tom Jul 06 '21 at 08:13

1 Answers1

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The article you provided is discussing the use of WinInet.dll in a service or an Internet Information Server (IIS) application.

If you need to use the latest version of WinInet in IIS applications, you need to load the minimal installation of Internet Explorer.

If we know more about WinInet, there will be no such doubts.

The WinINet API was added to Windows in Windows NT4 and Windows 95. This API set is located in Wininet.dll and is used by WinINET-aware applications such as Internet Explorer, Media Player, and Instant Messenger. The WinINET API itself enables applications to interact with the Gopher, FTP and HTTP protocols. WinINet abstracts these protocols to provide application developers with an interface that resembles standard file IO.

More details: Under the Hood: WinINet

Strive Sun
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