Conclusion: you're hosed with ghc-5.02.1 and its socket libs under Win32. Sorry.
If you don't mind getting your hands a (little) bit dirty, here's a story that will work ghc-5.02.1: * edit SocketPrim.hi (and SocketPrim.p_hi), to instead of saying "Socket" in its __export section it says "Socket{MkSocket}" (you'll find the .hi file in imports/net/ inside your 5.02.1 tree). * compile up the attached NetExtra.hs as follows: foo$ ghc -c NetExtra.hs -fvia-C -fglasgow-exts -package net * import and include NetExtra with your socket code, e.g., main = Socket.withSocketsDo $ do protNum <- getProtocolNumber "tcp" s <- socket AF_INET Stream protNum hostAddr <- inet_addr "127.0.0.1" let sAddr = (SockAddrInet 80 hostAddr) connect s sAddr send s "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n" str <- recvAll s putStr str recvAll :: Socket -> IO String recvAll sock = do str <- catch (recv s 100) (\ _ -> return "") case str of "" -> return str _ -> do ls <- recvAll sock return (str ++ ls) hth --sigbjorn