The microsoft .NET framework is a software framework that can be installed on computer running Microsoft Windows operating systems.The .NET framework includes virtual machine that manages the execution of program written specifically for framework and also includes large coded solutions to common programming solutions.The .NET framework is offered by Microsoft and comes in use by the most new application for windows platform.

The large range of features provided by the framework's base class library includes user interface,data access,database connectivity,cryptography,web application development,numeric algorithms and network communication.This class library combined with their own code is used by the programmers to produce applications.

The program written for the .NET franework execute in a software environment that manages the programs runtime requirements.Also part of .NET framework,this runtime enviroment is known as Common Language Runtime (CLR).The CLR provides the appearence of an application virtual machine so that programmers need not consider the capabilities of specific CPU that will execute the program.It also provides other services like memory allocation,garbage collection and exception handling.The class library and CLR together constitute the .NET framework.

Though some believe that technologies used in .NET were originally developed by Microsoft as their version of the Java platform, the truth is that many of the teams working on .NET initially set out to create COM+ 2.5. Other departments were also improving other Microsoft technologies; the web Server department was creating ASP 4.0 and the Microsoft distributed computing departments were creating what was called "Next-Generation Web Services". The work from the various departments merged into one system now called .NET.

When Microsoft decided to end their future use of Sun's Java technologies in 1998, the existing Microsoft J++ (Java) product was transformed into the beginnings of the .NET project. Code from the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) was said to have come from Colusa Software's OmniVM, which Microsoft acquired on March 12, 1996. Despite the rumors, the Microsoft CLR is not truly comparable to the Java VM as the CLR is a common language runtime, not a common platform runtime as the Java VM is. The CLR is actually the Microsoft implementation of the ECMA CIL standard. While Java applications can be written for many different platforms in only one language, .NET applications can be written in many different languages for, currently, only one operating-system platform (though many hardware platforms).


While the original model of .NET was that of a general foundation (.NET framework) with three primary pillars (ASP.NET, Windows, and Web Services), the model for .NET 2.0 is that of a foundation for Microsoft's next generation platform known as WinFX, which is the unification of Microsoft development technologies into one programming model. WinFX is also the replacement for the longlived Win32 API introduced in the early 1990s. The FX in WinFX is the abbreviation for the .NET Framework thus giving .NET the tall standing of being the foundation of the majority of future Microsoft-based development, higher or lower level.

See also: Comparison of the Java and .NET platforms and Comparison of C# and Java

The CLI and .NET languages such as C# and VB have many similarities to Sun's JVM and Java. Both are based on a virtual machine model that hides the details of the computer hardware on which their programs run. Both use their own intermediate byte-code, Microsoft calling theirs Common Intermediate Language (CIL; formerly MSIL) and Sun calling theirs Java bytecode. On .NET the byte-code is always compiled before execution, either Just In Time (JIT) or in advance of execution using the Native Image Generator utility (NGEN). With Java the byte-code is either interpreted, compiled in advance, or compiled JIT. Both provide extensive class libraries that address many common programming requirements and address many security issues that are present in other approaches. The namespaces provided in the .NET Framework closely resemble the platform packages in the Java EE API Specification in style and invocation.

.NET in its complete form (i.e., Microsoft's implementation, described in the Standardization and licensing section of this article) can only be installed on computers running a Microsoft Windows operating system whereas Java in its entirety can be installed on computers running any one of a variety of operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, Mac OS or Windows.From its beginning .NET has supported multiple programming languages and at its core remains platform agnostic and standardized so that other vendors can implement it on other platforms (although Microsoft's implementation only targets Windows, Windows CE, and Xbox platforms). The Java Virtual Machine was also designed to be both language and operating system agnostic and was launched with the slogan "Write once, run anywhere." While Java has long remained the most used language on the JVM by a wide margin, recent support for dynamic languages has increased popularity of alternatives; in particular JRuby, Scala, and Groovy.(see JVM languages).

Sun's reference implementation of Java (including the class library, the compiler, the virtual machine, and the various tools associated with the Java Platform) is open source under the GNU GPL license with Classpath exception.The source code for the .NET framework base class library is available for reference purposes only under the Microsoft Reference License.

The third-party Mono Project, sponsored by Novell, has been developing an open source implementation of the ECMA standards that are part of .NET Framework, as well as most of the other non-ECMA standardized libraries in Microsoft's .NET. The Mono implementation is meant to run on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, BSD, HP-UX, and Windows platforms. Mono includes the CLR, the class libraries, and compilers for C# and VB.NET. The current version supports all the APIs in version 2.0 of Microsoft's .NET. Full support exists for C# 3.0 LINQ to Objects and LINQ to XML.

Applications running in a managed environment tend to require more system resources than similar applications that access machine resources more directly.

All "managed" languages are easier to reverse-engineer than native code. There is concern over possible loss of trade secrets and the bypassing of license control mechanisms. Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 (and newer) includes a tool to obfuscate code, and many other techniques can help to prevent this.

Newer versions of the framework (3.5 and up) are not pre-installed in versions of Windows below Windows 7. For this reason, applications must lead users without the framework through a procedure to install it. Some developers have expressed concerns about the large size of .NET framework runtime installers for end-users. The size is around 54 MB for .NET 3.0, 197 MB for .NET 3.5, and 250 MB for .NET 3.5 SP1 (while using web installer the typical download for Windows XP is around 50 MB, for Windows Vista - 20 MB). The size issue is partially solved with .NET 4 installer (x86 + x64) being 54 MB.

The first service pack for version 3.5 mitigates this concern by offering a lighter-weight client-only subset of the full .NET Framework. Two significant limitations should be noted, though.Firstly, the client-only subset is only an option on an existing Windows XP SP2 system that currently has no other version of the .NET framework installed. In all other scenarios, the client-only installer will install the full version of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Secondly, the client-only framework does not have a 64-bit option. However, the 4 release of the .NET Framework Client Profile will be available on all operating systems and all architectures (excluding ia64) supported by the full .NET Framework.

The .NET framework currently does not provide support for calling Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) via managed code. However, Mono has provided support for SIMD Extensions as of version 2.2 within the Mono.Simd namespace; Mono's lead developer Miguel de Icaza has expressed hope that this SIMD support will be adopted by the CLR ECMA standard.Streaming SIMD Extensions have been available in CPUs since the introduction of the Pentium III. However, adding CPU specific implementations would reduce the portability of .Net, one of its design goals.

C# (pronounced "see sharp") is a multi-paradigm programming language encompassing imperative, functional, generic, object-oriented (class-based), and component-oriented programming disciplines. It was developed by Microsoft within the .NET initiative and later approved as a standard by Ecma (ECMA-334) and ISO (ISO/IEC 23270). C# is one of the programming languages designed for the Common Language Infrastructure.

C# is intended to be a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language. Its development team is led by Anders Hejlsberg. The most recent version is C# 3.0, which was released in conjunction with the .NET Framework 3.5 in 2007. The next proposed version, 4.0, is in development. more....

A graphical user interface (GUI) (sometimes pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

The term GUI is historically restricted to the scope of two-dimensional display screens with display resolutions capable of describing generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The term GUI earlier might have been applicable to other high-resolution types of interfaces that are non-generic, such as videogames, or not restricted to flat screens, like volumetric displays.

Abbreviated GUI (pronounced GOO-ee). A program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use. Well-designed graphical user interfaces can free the user from learning complex command languages. On the other hand, many users find that they work more effectively with a command-driven interface, especially if they already know the command language.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a set of rules for encoding documents electronically. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C and several other related specifications; all are fee-free open standards.

XML’s design goals emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability over the Internet.It is a textual data format, with strong support via Unicode for the languages of the world. Although XML’s design focuses on documents, it is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures, for example in web services.

There are a variety of programming interfaces which software developers may use to access XML data, and several schema systems designed to aid in the definition of XML-based languages.

As of 2009[update], hundreds of XML-based languages have been developed,including RSS, Atom, SOAP, and XHTML. XML-based formats have become the default for most office-product

ADO.NET is a set of computer software components that can be used by programmers to access data and data services. It is a part of the base class library that is included with the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is commonly used by programmers to access and modify data stored in relational database systems, though it can also be used to access data in non-relational sources. ADO.NET is sometimes considered an evolution of ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) technology, but was changed so extensively that it can be considered an entirely new product.

ADO.NET provides consistent access to data sources such as Microsoft SQL Server, as well as data sources exposed through OLE DB and XML. Data-sharing consumer applications can use ADO.NET to connect to these data sources and retrieve, manipulate, and update data.

ADO.NET cleanly factors data access from data manipulation into discrete components that can be used separately or in tandem. ADO.NET includes .NET Framework data providers for connecting to a database, executing commands, and retrieving results. Those results are either processed directly, or placed in an ADO.NET DataSet object in order to be exposed to the user in an ad-hoc manner, combined with data from multiple sources, or remoted between tiers. The ADO.NET DataSet object can also be used independently of a .NET Framework data provider to manage data local to the application or sourced from XML.

The ADO.NET classes are found in System.Data.dll, and are integrated with the XML classes found in System.Xml.dll. When compiling code that uses the System.Data namespace, reference both System.Data.dll and System.Xml.dll. For an example of compiling an ADO.NET application using a command line compiler, see ADO.NET Sample Application.

ADO.NET provides functionality to developers writing managed code similar to the functionality provided to native COM developers by ADO. For a discussion of the differences between ADO and ADO.NET.

ASP.NET is a web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, web applications and web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. ASP.NET is built on the Common Language Runtime (CLR), allowing programmers to write ASP.NET code using any supported .NET language. The ASP.NET SOAP extension framework allows ASP.NET components to process SOAP messages.

ASP.NET is the next generation ASP, but it's not an upgraded version of ASP. ASP.NET is an entirely new technology for server-side scripting.

ASP.NET is a part of the Microsoft .NET framework, and a powerful tool for creating dynamic and interactive web pages