> Yes, there might be a problem with WinPcap. But there is no problem
> to run ethereal 0.8.16 with WinPcap 2.1 and without the Winsock 2
> Update.
WinPcap consists of a device driver and two libraries. Prior to 2.1,
the libpcap library was only a static library (.obj), so when a program
was linked with WinPcap 2.02, for example, the code from the libpcap
library was linked into the program itself.
This means that if versions of Ethereal linked with WinPcap 2.02 - such
as the pre-0.8.17 versions - are installed on a machine with WinPcap 2.1
installed, they will use the device driver and packet-driver library
from 2.1 (the packet-driver library is a dynamic library (.dll)).
However, they will use the libpcap library from 2.02, as that's what's
linked into the program.
In 2.1, the libpcap library was made a dynamic library; programs linked
with WinPcap 2.1 - for example, Ethereal 0.8.17 - will, when run on a
machine with WinPcap 2.1 installed, use the libpcap library from WinPcap
2.1. (Actually, Ethereal loads libpcap at run time, so that it'll work
regardless of whether libpcap is installed or not; however, if it's not
installed, Ethereal won't be able to capture packets, it'll only be able
to read saved captures.)
So, if the WinPcap 2.1 libpcap library requires the Winsock 2 update -
but the WinPcap 2.1 packet library doesn't require it - Ethereal 0.8.16
won't require that update, as it doesn't use the WinPcap 2.1 libpcap
library; this is true even if the machine on which you're running it has
WinPcap 2.1 installed.
However, Ethereal 0.8.17 will require that update, as it's using the
WinPcap 2.1 libcap library.
> Therefore I supposed, that it's not just something with the WinPcap
> 2.1 library.
>
> Now, when I'm writing these lines, unfortunately I've no oportunity to
> do some tests. I will make this up in few days and post the results
> here.
>
> Thomas Kornmüller
