Boost::asio winsock and winsock 2 compatibility issue

Question

My project uses windows.h in which winsock.h is used, and I need to include boost:assio which uses winsock2. So I get many errors that says Winsock.h already included. I can

Answer 1

For me, switching the order of includes caused compile errors with another Microsoft include I was using - that was declaring things with "typedef interface".

Since my error was coming from socket_types.h, from these lines:

# if defined(_WINSOCKAPI_) && !defined(_WINSOCK2API_)
#  error WinSock.h has already been included
# endif // defined(_WINSOCKAPI_) && !defined(_WINSOCK2API_)

I put an include of "winsock2.h" before the Windows.h, and then finally the boost/asio.hpp include, and things then compiled happily.