The WSAEventSelect and WSAEnumNetworkEvents functions are provided to accommodate applications such as daemons and services that have no user interface (and hence do not use Windows handles). The WSAEventSelect function behaves exactly like the WSAAsyncSelect function. However, instead of causing a Windows message to be sent on the occurrence of an FD_XXX network event (for example, FD_READ and FD_WRITE), an application-designated event object is set.
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en..._objects_2.asp
No GUI involved here... It's just an eventloop.. Works the same for a GUI or console app.. The only difference is that a GUI app will also send GUI events..