I think I depends on the protocol, and yes you need the path in the server, I know you don't have the server name, but you can replace it with the IP in most cases (HTTP and FTP), for those cases try the method DownloadFile of the class System.Net.WebClient, it's very straight forward, just pass the two paths as parametters (the one in the server, and the local one, in that order).
here for the documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.webclient.downloadfile.aspx I think, that the old File.Copy will work for ethernet (not sure): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.file.copy.aspx please note, that server's path are relative to the shared path in the server. [If you don't know the protocol, don't keep reading] If you can't have that path, that's a problem, may be DownloadString helps a lit, it works for downloading web pages and lots of web API uses it. That's the low level communication basis for a web service, and something that may help if you are getting the files on SOAP (but try convertional ways first in that case). I think I'm missing the case of a database connection, (SQL sever perhaps), I can't help in that case, but surelly you may pass the files as raws in a table, or as tables in a database (yep, a table is a file). If you need any other protocol or weird method (like p2p for instance, I think microsoft released something for this), there most be protocol specific third party libs, if not... I hope TcpClient or UdpClient fit your needs, because if not, you'll be mocking arround with sockets. If you are asking, surely you don't know how to use them. so... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_socket http://msdn.microsoft.com/es-es/library/system.net.sockets.socket(VS.80).aspx For non-internet connections, ask the service provider >_< ~theraot
