In some circumstances, an error can occur when attempting to initialize a SocketTools component indicating the operating system version is not supported.
This error can occur on an end-user system when starting an application built using a SocketTools component or library, or can occur in when developing an application, particularly when using a legacy IDE such as Visual Basic 6.0. If you are using the SocketTools Library Edition, this occurs after calling the API's initialization function.
If you are using the .NET class or ActiveX control, this error can occur after calling the Initialize method or when attempting to establish a connection. The error code that is returned will be 0x8004276C if you are using the SocketTools API. For the .NET class or ActiveX controls, the error code returned by the LastError property will be 10092.
More Information
Whenever one of the SocketTools libraries or components are loaded and initialized, an internal check is performed to ensure a supported version of the Windows operating system is hosting the application. SocketTools requires Windows 7 SP1 or later for desktop platforms, or Windows Server 2008 R2 or later for server platforms. If an older, unsupported version of Windows is detected, the initialization process will fail. Older versions of Windows, such as Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 no longer provide support for many of the modern security and networking features which are required by SocketTools.
The most common reason this problem occurs is because the application has been configured to run with compatibility settings which specify an unsupported version of Windows. For example, if you are experiencing this error when building or testing an application the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE, it is likely that it has been configured to execute in compatibility mode as either Windows XP or Windows Vista. Because compatibility mode forces the process to believe it is running on an earlier version of Windows, the internal version check performed by SocketTools will fail.
To resolve this problem, either disable compatibility mode for the executable, or change it to specify a supported version of Windows such as Windows 7. We also recommend that modern applications provide an application manifest which explicitly specifies which versions of Windows are supported.
See Also
Application Manifests
Manifest Files Reference
Targeting Your Application for Windows