On Aug 10, 2013, at 5:51 AM, Bjorn Reese <breese@mail1.stofanet.dk<mailto:breese@mail1.stofanet.dk>> wrote: Boost.Asio uses native_handle_type, which is a wrapper class for the underlying socket type. In the case of Windows this is SOCKET. However, you probably need to go via a intermediary variable: boost::asio::windows::stream_handle::native_handle_type handle(zfd); boost::asio::windows::stream_handle io(ios, handle); Disclaimer: I have not compiled it. You may need to include something from detail to make it work, or it may not work at all ;-) Well, this at least compiles for me. zmq::context_t zenv(1); zmq::socket_t zocket(zenv, ZMQ_PUSH); SOCKET zfd; std::size_t zfd_size = sizeof(zfd); zocket.getsockopt(ZMQ_FD, &zfd, &zfd_size); boost::asio::windows::stream_handle::native_handle_type zfd_native(&zfd); boost::asio::io_service ios; boost::asio::windows::stream_handle io(ios, zfd_native); I have no idea, yet, if that is a good thing or not ;-) ________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments are confidential. If it is not intended for you, please notify the sender, and please erase and ignore the contents.