Microsoft .Net Framework

What is Microsoft.NET platform?

Microsoft .NET is a software development platform based on virtual machine based architecture. Dot net is designed from the scratch to support programming language independent application development. The entire .NET programs are independent of any particular operating system and physical hardware machine. They can run on any physical machine, running any operating system that contains the implementation of .NET Framework. The core component of the .NET framework is its Common Language Runtime (CLR), which provides the abstraction of execution environment (Physical machine and Operating System) and manages the overall execution of any of the .NET based program.

With dot NET, Microsoft introduces a completely new architecture for Windows applications (WinForm), Data Access (ADO.NET), Web Applications (ASP.NET), Windows components (Assemblies), Distributed Applications (.NET remoting), and above all the XML based Web Services. The famous figure for the representation of dot net is presented below:

What is the .NET framework?

The .NET framework is a collection of all the tools and utilities required to execute the .NET managed applications on a particular platform. The MS.NET framework includes the standard compilers (C#, VB.NET, J#, C++.NET, Jscript.NET), various utilities like (caspol, ngen, installutil, tlbimp, sn, asmreg, ildasm, etc), runtime environment (CLR), garbage collector, security manager, thread manager, assembly loader, just in time compilers, and the standard framework or base class libraries. It is important to realize that while the implementation of .Net applications is platform independent; the implementation of .NET framework is platform specific. In fact, it is this particular specific implementation of the .NET framework that makes the managed .NET applications platform independent.