Introduction

In Chapter 3, Web Development, we looked at web development, and how Visual Studio supports web developers. Of course, the .NET Framework is also useful for writing traditional desktop applications and server-side programming.

In this chapter, we turn the spotlight on Visual Studio 2015's support for the .NET platform for non-web applications. We will look specifically at functionality that has been added or enhanced. This chapter will start by discussing what was included with the .NET Framework 4.5, and then move on to discuss the new features found in 4.6.1.

You should be aware that like its previous version, .NET Framework 4.5, Framework 4.6.1 is an in-place upgrade of its 4.x predecessors. This means that while you may have only one version of the 4.x series installed, they will run side by side with the earlier versions of the framework (version 3.5 SP1 and its predecessors).

Note

Be aware that, like the previous 4.5 release, .NET Framework 4.6.1 is not supported on Windows...