Microsoft .NET Framework is a programming infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying and running applications & services that use .NET technologies, such as desktop applications, web applications and Web services.

 

In this post, I am going to list down the history of .NET Framework along with the key features which has been introduced with each version of the framework.

 

History of Microsoft .NET Framework and it's Key Features (www.kunal-chowdhury.com)

 

If you are a developer working on Microsoft platform, you may want to know the history of the .NET Framework along with Release Date, CLR version, Visual Studio IDE releases and the key features introduced in each versions of the framework. I am listing all of them here for your reference. Hope you will like it.

 

You may like to read:   List of Key features introduced in C# (1.0 to 6.0) - an Infographic

 

 

.NET Version CLR Version IDE Released Release Date Key Features
.NET 1.0 1.0 Visual Studio .NET 13-Feb-2002 - DLL libraries
- Support for object oriented web app dev
.NET 1.1 1.1 Visual Studio .NET 2003 24-Apr-2003 - Enhancements to ASP.NET and ADO.NET
- Support for built-in mobile ASP.NET controls
- Security enhancement for WinForm, ASP.NET
- Support for ODBC and other databases
- Support for IPV6 (Internet Protocol Version 6)
- .NET Compact Framework for small devices
.NET 2.0 2.0 Visual Studio 2005 07-Nov-2005 - Generics
- Generic collections
- Partial class
- Nullable types
- Anonymous methods
- Iterators
- Data tables
- Membership providers
- New controls and features for ASP.NET
- Support for 64-bit computing
- Microsoft SQL Server integration
- .NET Micro Framework for SPOT
.NET 3.0 2.0 Visual Studio 2005 06-Nov-2006 - WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation
- WCF (Windows Communication Foundation
- WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation)
- Windows CardSpace
.NET 3.5 2.0 Visual Studio 2008 19-Nov-2007 - LINQ
- Dynamic data
- AJAX support
- Multi targeting framework
.NET 4.0 4.0 Visual Studio 2010 12-Apr-2010 - MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework)
- DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime)
- Task parallel library
- Support for Coe Contracts
.NET 4.5 4.0 Visual Studio 2012 15-Aug-2012 - CLR 4.0 enhanced
- Built-in support to Async
- Support for Windows Store (Metro) app dev
- WPF, WCF, WWF enhanced
- ASP.NET support enhanced
- Native support for Zip compression
.NET 4.5.1 4.0 Visual Studio 2013 17-Oct-2013 - Support for automatic binding redirection
- Improvements towards performance, debugging
- Expanded support for Windows Store app dev
.NET 4.5.2 4.0 Visual Studio 2013 05-May-2014 - Improvements for high DPI scenarios
- Higher reliability HTTP header inspection
.NET 4.6 4.0 Visual Studio 2015 20-Jul-2015 - A new JIT compiler named RyuJIT, for 64-bit
- Support for code page encodings
- Open source .NET framework packages
- Event tracing improvements
- Support fo TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2
.NET 4.6.1 4.0 Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 17-Nov-2015 - WPF improvements for spell check
- Enhanced support for Digital Signature algo
- Support for always ON SQL connectivity
- Distributed transactions in Azure SQL database
- Performance, stability, reliability improvements
.NET 4.6.2
(Preview)		 4.0     - TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 support for ClickOnce
- Support for additional cryptographic standards
- Soft keyboard, per monitor DPI support for WPF

 

Hope you liked this post. Don’t forget to share it in your network, colleagues and friends. Please let me know, if I missed any and I will add them here. Thanks for reading & following my blog. Enjoy reading my other blog posts.

 

 

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