URGENT: Winsock and Serial Port

Hello everybody.
I have a pair of apps (client and server) which communicate with each other using Winsock. The communication takes place over Ethernet LAN. My company has asked me demonstrate the working of both the apps, with a slight change in the configuration : the applications, instead of communicating over Ethernet have to talk over the serial port. HOWEVER, I AM **NOT** ALLOWED TO USED SERIAL COMMUNICATION APIs. The program MUST use sockets as it is doing currently. (Ofcourse, I can make minimal changes to my apps, like changing the port # etc).
My problem is : I don't know how to bind the serial port to the TCP stack. Do I have to make some changes in the ControlPanel-->Network applet? What changes does my app need for this to work. Please help.... this is Urgent.
Thanks a lot.
Kamran