thanks to both kduffin and linuxpenguin.

I think what I was looking for was what linuxpenguin said.
My system really needs a unix box to communicate with a Windows box. The client sits on the windows box and server + db on the unix box.

Is there any other ways of doing this? I have never coded with sockets, so I have no idea where to start.

Any help - suggestions - comments - ideas ??