What is .NET framework?

Microsoft .NET Framework is a complex technology that provides the infrastructure for building, running, and managing next generation applications. In a layered representation, the .NET Framework is a layer positioned between the Microsoft Windows operating system and your applications. .NET is a platform but also is defined as a technology because it is composed of several parts such as libraries, executable tools, and relationships and integrate with the operating system. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 relies on the new version of the .NET Framework 4.0. Visual Basic 2010, C# 4.0, and F# 2010 are .NET languages that rely on and can build applications for the .NET Framework 4.0. The new version of this technology introduces important new features that will be described later. In this chapter you get an overview of the most important features of the .NET Framework so that you will know how applications built with Visual Basic 2010 can run and how they can be built.