The Microsoft. NET Framework is a software component which can be added to the Microsoft Windows operating System. 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. NET Framework is a key Microsoft offering, and is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform. The pre-coded solutions in the namespaces form the framework's class library and cover a large range of programming needs in areas including the user interface, data access, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. The functions of the class library are used by programmers who combine them with their own code to produce applications. Programs written for the. NET Framework execute in a software environment that manages the program's runtime requirements. This runtime environment, which is also a part of the. NET Framework, is known as the Common Language Runtime . The CLR provides the appearance of an application virtual machine, so that programmers need not consider the capabilities of the specific CPU that will execute the program. The CLR also provides other important services such as security mechanisms, memory management, and exception handling. The class library and the CLR together compose the. NET Framework. The framework is intended to make it easier to develop computer applications and to reduce the vulnerability of applications and computers to security threats. The Microsoft. NET Framework 3.5 Beta 1 is a preview release of the latest version of the. NET Framework. Many ISV's, enterprises and Microsoft product teams are successfully building on the new features Windows Workflow Foundation , Windows Communication Foundation , Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows CardSpace in the. NET Framework 3.0. Microsoft plans to continue to invest in the. NET Framework developer platform and in support of existing users the. NET Framework 3.5 has a minimal number of breaking changes. So that existing applications built for. NET Framework 2.0 or. NET Framework 3.0 should continue to run without requiring changes. The. NET Framework 3.5 adds new features in several major technology areas; including: - Deep integration of Language Integrated Query and data awareness - ASP. NET AJAX for quickly creating more efficient, more interactive and highly-personalized Web experiences that work across all the most popular browsers - New web protocol support for building WCF services including AJAX, JSON, REST, POX, RSS, ATOM and several new WS- standards - Full tooling support for WF, WCF and WPF including the new workflow-enabled services technology - New classes in the base class library for the. NET Framework 3.5 address the most common customer requests. . NET Framework 3.5 is planned to release at the end of 2007 and will ship with Visual Studio code name "Orcas" and will also continue to be available for separate download from MSDN. System Requirements: - Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP - Processor: 400 MHz Pentium processor or equivalence , 1GHz Pentium processor or equivalence - RAM: 96 MB , 256 MB - Hard Disk: Up to 500 MB or available space may be required - CD or DVD Drive: Not required - Display: 800 x 600, 256 colors , 1024 x 768 high color, 32-bit Homepage - http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/ Size: 2.62 MB Download. NET Framework 3.5 Beta 3 -