sherwood and peer guardian just block connections from IP Addresses on the block lists, peer guardian blocks in and out but the lists are... well, huge, and mostly irrelevant, sherwood only blocks inbound but the list has been made just for winmx so only has relevant IP addresses and has many more of the IP Addresses that a winmx user would want to block
the other 2 are system files, so i'm not entirely sure what you mean, but i'll assume you mean the connection patches i've released? they both do the same sort of thing but just load in different ways
ws2_32.dll replaces the winsock dll so winmx accesses that dll instead of winsock when calling winsock functions, that then calls the original dll - this allows it to interfere with the winsock functions, for example when gethostbyname() is called by winmx with a parameter pointing to one of the original cache hostnames when it calls the original dll the parameter is instead one of the new hostnames, so in fact it is as if winmx is doing a DNS lookup on a different hostname. This also modifies the accept() function so after accepting a connection it checks the IP Address of it, and if it is a blocked one it closes the connection straight away before winmx even gets the socket back.
olepro32.dll does the same thing of replacing the winsock functions, it just does it in a different way, it gets loaded to do a completely different task but when it loads it goes and modifies winmx in memory so instead of calling winsock functions it goes and calls the replacement ones contained within the dll, the current version only replaces the various functions for doing dns lookups, and because it depends on working in a specific way it doesn't effect the internet explorer window in the top left like a winsock replacement dll does.
by merging the sources of both files (ie. putting all the actual replaced functions in a common file and only the bits to do with how it loads in each dll) the next versions of each will end up doing exactly the same, although they will still use the 2 different methods of loading, this is just a simpler way of saying the block list and any other added features will be put in the 9x version as well
i'm just having a problem with the IE window on the 9x version, only a cosmetic thing but still...
