Does named pipes use ports to communicate? Named pipes i use: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365150%28VS.85%29.aspx
Yes, when communicating with remote machines it uses ports 137 and 139 UDP and potentially 445 TCP.
Locally pipes are implemented via MMF (memory mapped files).
Essentially some of the facilities used in the CIFS/SMB protocol are also used for named pipes when communicating with remote machines.