WININET Versions

WININET.DLL has so far existed in at least nine variations considered by Microsoft to have sufficient external impact to deserve at least a difference in the minor version number.

Note that the original Internet Explorer 3.0 has a WININET.DLL with a lower version number than was ever bundled into a Windows release.

Builds

Though the next table fusses over such details as build numbers and dates, it is certainly not meant as a comprehensive list even of builds that had formal, public releases. For that, consult Microsoft, who manufacture the software and are surely best able of anyone to present a definitive record. Bear in mind, however, that if Microsoft’s published documentation could sensibly be relied on as either comprehensive or accurate, then you could not now be reading these notes.

Builds are arranged in increasing order of the file version as recorded in the executable’s resources. This version number is readily visible using Windows Explorer either in a so-called infotip for the file or by accessing the Version tab in the Properties dialog for the file. Programmers know this version number as coming from the so-called root block of the version-information resource, specifically from the dwFileVersionMS and dwFileVersionLS members of a VS_FIXEDFILEINFO structure.

The date stamp shown for each version is more obscure. File dates are easily modified after the executable is built and are anyway liable to be shown differently when read from different time zones. However, there is in each executable’s header a date stamp which is set when the executable is built and is not commonly changed afterwards. It is readily accessible to anyone with programming knowledge and appropriate tools, e.g., Microsoft’s own DUMPBIN utility.

In the days when Microsoft had two operating systems named Windows, most Internet Explorer versions supplied the executable separately for Windows and NT (and in some cases with a further separation for NT 4.0 and Windows 2000). Where two date stamps are presented on the same row for an Internet Explorer release, it means that the Windows and NT executables differ only in the file header’s date stamp and checksum (and that the date stamps are from the same day).

The WININET.DLL executables for all three of the Windows NT 4.0 service packs that include WININET.DLL are identical.

The executables in the Internet Explorer 7 packages for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 differ only because of rebasing, including to change the file header’s date stamp and checksum.

The executables for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are identical.

64-Bit Windows (x64)

Where two packages are shown for the same build, the executables are identical.

32-Bit Windows on 64-Bit Windows (wow64)

WININET is not sufficiently low-level that the 32-bit builds of WININET.DLL for 64-bit Windows differ from the corresponding builds in 32-bit Windows.