Two apps communicating via a LAN

If I could just explain my situation and then request some feedback, that would be great. For my uni project I am creating two WinAPI applications. Each of these applications will be situated on a seperate computer running from the HD of that computer. Both of these computers will be attached to the university network, logged into the same user account, directly via a LAN card in each PC. This account has internet access. What I need is for the user to be sat at the 'user' computer with the 'user' application and to give commands to this application. Data corresponding to these commands needs to then be sent to the slave application on the other computer whereupon functions will be carried out by this application accordingly.

I realise that there may be more than one way of achieving. I could probably use TCP/IP or create a file on the network space ready to be read by the slave application. I would prefer however to have the data sent directly to the slave application if possible. I just need some info on what I could do to achieve this and some corresponding pointers as to what to research on MSDN. I have had a browse allready but MSDN is huge and I don't have a clue what to look for. Thanks for any help.

Sockets.

http://world.std.com/~jimf/papers/sockets/sockets.html