History of .Net framework

.NET Framework Version 1.0 

The first version of the .NET Framework was released on 13 February 2002 for Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP.

.NET Framework Version 1.1 

Version 1.1 is the first major .NET Framework upgrade. It is available on its own as a redistributable package or in a software development kit, and was published on 3 April 2003.

• Built-in support for mobile ASP.NET controls, which was previously available as an add-on.
• Enables Windows Forms assemblies to execute in a semi-trusted manner from the Internet.
• Enables Code Access Security in ASP.NET applications.
• Built-in support for ODBC and databases, which was previously available as an add-on.
• .NET Compact Framework, a version of the .NET Framework for small devices.
• Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support.

.NET Framework Version 2.0 

• Full 64-bit computing support for both the x64 and the IA-64 hardware platforms
• Microsoft SQL Server integration: Instead of using T-SQL, one can build stored procedures and triggers in any of the .NET-compatible languages
• .NET Micro Framework, a version of the .NET Framework related to the Smart Personal Objects Technology initiative
• Membership provider
• Partial classes
• Null able types
• Anonymous methods
• Iterators
• Data tables
• Common Language Runtime (CLR) 2.0
• Language support for generics built directly into the .NET CLR

.NET Framework Version 3.0 

• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) : A new user interface subsystem and API based on XAML markup language, which uses 3D computer graphics hardware and Direct3D technologies.
• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) : A service-oriented messaging system which allows programs to interoperate locally or remotely similar to web services.
• Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) : Allows building task automation and integrated transactions using workflows
• Windows CardSpace : A software component which securely stores a person's digital identities and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction, such as logging in to a website,

.NET Framework Version 3.5 

As with previous versions, a new .NET Compact Framework 3.5 was released in tandem with this update in order to provide support for additional features on Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE devices.

.NET Framework Version 4.0 

• Parallel Extensions to improve support for parallel computing, which target multi-core or distributed systems. To this end, technologies like PLINQ (Parallel LINQ), a parallel implementation of the LINQ engine, and Task Parallel Library, which exposes parallel constructs via method calls.,[28] are included.
• New Visual Basic .NET and C# language features, such as implicit line continuations, dynamic dispatch, named parameters, and optional parameters.
• Support for Code Contracts.
• Inclusion of new types to work with arbitrary-precision arithmetic (System.Numerics.BigInteger) and complex numbers (System.Numerics.Complex).
• Introduced Common Language Runtime (CLR) 4.0.

.NET Framework Version 4.5 

• In the .NET Framework 4.5, new asynchronous features were added to the C# and Visual Basic languages. These features add a task-based model for performing asynchronous operations.