Well, you can use Win32API CreateFile(), WriteFile(), ReadFile() to access, read/write files, pipes, named-pipes and mailslots (all types also over network).

Berkeley sockets introduced in Win3.1 for Workgroups and later as WinSocks for IE 1 (based on Mosaic) came late (Bill Gates vision was the Microsoft Network based on Win95 GUI, later renamed was MSN as dial-up network): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_sockets , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Network#MSN_Classic