The .NET Framework is an application (desktop, web, and phone) development platform that provides services for building, deploying.

Applications may be like:

• Console applications
• Windows Forms applications
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications
• Web applications (ASP.NET applications)
• Web services
• Windows services
• Service-oriented applications using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
• Workflow-enabled applications using Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)

The .NET Framework consists of two major components:

• Common Language Runtime (CLR)
• .NET Framework Class Library (FCL)