Microsoft .NET Framework Help Pages

.NET .NET developer center

.NET is an umbrella term that applies to a wide collection of products and technologies from Microsoft. Microsoft products and components that fall into the .NET category include:

  • .NET Framework, an operating system component required by most .NET products, and
  • .NET Passport.
.NET Framework is a development and execution environment that allows different programming languages & libraries to work together seamlessly to create Windows-based applications that are easier to build, manage, deploy, and integrate with other networked systems. It provides a large body of pre-coded solutions to common program requirements, and manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework. The following figure shows the .NET Framework component stack: