Student seeking answers on xp architecture for paper!

Hello friends,

I'm just doing some research, well, actually that's not correct. I'm trying to do research on the way that ports are controlled in windows XP. Here are my questions:

1. Is the firewall the only part of the operating system that controls ports?
2. How many ports are available for use on an XP system?
3. I was told somewhere that there are 65,000+ ports on any given XP machine, does this include printer/udp/tcp/software ports?
4. What different kind of ports are there in windows?


That's all for now I think!

Thanks,
Seth

What you are asking is really beyond the scope of a single paper. This is the topic of literally dozens of books. However, I'll attempt to answer your questions.Absolutely not. There are several application layers that control network traffic. You should familiarize yourself with the concepts of Application Layering and Network Protocol Stacking.That depends upon your definition of "available for use". Are you asking however are available in general or how many are available to an application developer?There are 65,535 each of TCP and UDP ports on a system. That is not to imply that all or even most of them are or ever will be in use.Networking ports consist of TCP and UDP ports. While COM1/2, Serial, and PS/2 are also called ports, these are hardware interfaces. The "port" here is the physical connector being used. Take a printer for example. While it may be connected via a parallel port, it still communicates with the computer through a TCP port.