The Microsoft .NET Framework is a software component that provides a large body of pre-coded solutions to common software development requirements, and manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework. The .NET Framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform.

Many applications require the .NET framework to be installed. It needs to be separately installed for Windows XP whereas it is an integral part of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008.