Microsoft .NET Framework FAQ

Conceptual Questions
• What is the .NET Framework?
Runtime Technical Questions
Terminology
• What is the Common Language Runtime (CLR)?
• What is the common type system (CTS)?
• What is the Common Language Specification (CLS)?
• What is the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL)?
• What is managed code and managed data?
Assemblies
• What is an assembly?
• What are private assemblies and shared assemblies?
• If I want to build a shared assembly, does that require the overhead of signing and managing key pairs?
• What is the difference between a namespace and an assembly name?
Application Deployment and Isolation
• What options are available to deploy my .NET applications?
• I've written an assembly that I want to use in more than one application. Where do I deploy it?
• How can I see what assemblies are installed in the global assembly cache?
• What is an application domain?
Garbage Collection
• What is garbage collection?
• How does non-deterministic garbage collection affect my code?
• Can I avoid using the garbage collected heap?
Remoting
• How do in-process and cross-process communication work in the Common Language Runtime?
Interoperability
• Can I use COM objects from a .NET Framework program?
• Can .NET Framework components be used from a COM program?
• Can I use the Win32 API from a .NET Framework program?
Security
• What do I have to do to make my code work with the security system?
• Why does my code get a security exception when I run it from a network shared drive?
• How do I make it so that code runs when the security system is stopping it?
• How do I administer security for my machine? For an enterprise?
• How does evidence-based security work with Windows 2000 security?