Winsock and Unix

I've asked about this before but still have problems.

I need to send and retrieve data from/to VB6/Unix eg "pwd" returns working directory details.

I have Winsock probs in that I get error Wrong Protocol or connection state for the requested transaction or request.

When I use a 3rd party tool (Catalyst's Socket Wrench), it appears to connect, but gets no data back.

I suspect that I'm missing something fundamental, eg does the Unix server need to be listening and if so, the fact that I can connect via Telnet and SQLNet for DB access makes it seem puzzling that I do.

Cheers for any help given

conmurph