.NET FAQ

According to Microsoft, .NET is a "revolutionary new platform, built on open Internet protocols and standards, with tools and services that meld computing and communications in new ways".
A simpler way of saying that would be that the .NET Platform is a new Runtime Environment for developing and running applications which are easier to build, deploy and scale. Also it features a a Common Language Specification which helps to solve the interoperability issue. Also components written in one programming language can be used by other programming language.

Get the .NET SDK from Microsoft. The .NET SDK contains command-line compilers and utilities which can be used to build .NET apps. Visual Studio (called Visual Studio 7 or Visual Studio.NET) also is fully supportive to  .NET development.

You can download the .NET SDK from http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/  (131Mb). You can also order CD's of Visual Studio 7 from Microsoft (Visual Studio 7 contains the .NET SDK). There is no free download of Visual Studio.NET.

ASP.NET, CLR (Common Language Runtime), C# (a new Java-like language), Visual Basic .NET, Managed C++, Visual Foxpro .NET, SOAP, XML, ADO+, multi-language support (Eiffel, COBOL etc)

This version of .NET  runs on Win98/ME & Windows NT/2000/XP. Please remember to install IIS 5.0 on Win2000/XP which is needed to run ASP.NET before installing the .NET SDK.

At present Microsoft provides compilers for C#, Managed C++, VB.NET and JScript.NET. Other vendors have announced that they intend to develop .NET compilers for languages such as COBOL, Eiffel, Perl and Python.

In the present programming scenario there are many defects when it comes to scaling and interoperability. It becomes difficult and impossible sometimes to scale your existing applications to work across computers running on different operating systems and programming languages. Also its not easy to use code written in one language and build on it in another language. To provide a solution to such problems Microsoft has come up with a Framework which will enable high scalability and interoperability.

To solve this install the latest service packs on your operating system before installing the SDK. Eg. on Windows 2000 first install Service Pack 2 and Data Access Components, only then install the SDK.

Exe's written on the .NET platform are written in MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language). Hence they cannot be executed on any normal operating system. You will have to install the separate "redistributable runtime environment" (20 mb) on the clients machine. This is also available from the Microsoft website for free.

The .NET SDK contains the .NET runtime environment, compilers for C#, VB.NET , Managed C++ , JScript.NET, support for ASP.NET and a wide array of tools required for the above. Also it contains the documentation for the .NET platform , C# , VB.NET etc.