.NET Framework version history

.NET Store APIs

Async model

Parallel LINQ

TPL

LINQ

EF

WPF

WCF

WF

WCS

WinForms

ASP.NET

ADO.NET

Framework Class Library

Common Language Runtime

The.NET Frameworkstack

Microsoft started development on the.NET Frameworkin the late 1990s originally under the name of Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2001 the first beta versions of.NET Framework 1.0 were released.The first version of.NET Framework was released on 13 February 2002, bringingmanaged codetoWindows NT 4.0,98,2000,MEandXP.

Since the first version, Microsoft has released nine more upgrades for.NET Framework, seven of which have been released along with a new version ofVisual Studio.Two of these upgrades,.NET Framework 2.0 and 4.0, have upgradedCommon Language Runtime(CLR). New versions of.NET Framework replace older versions when the CLR version is the same.

The.NET Framework family also includes two versions formobileorembedded deviceuse. A reduced version of the framework, the.NET Compact Framework,is available onWindows CEplatforms, includingWindows Mobiledevices such assmartphones.Additionally, the.NET Micro Frameworkis targeted at severely resource-constrained devices.

.NET Framework 4.8 was announced as the final version of.NET Framework, with future work going into the rewritten andcross-platform.NET Coreplatform (later, simply.NET), which shipped as.NET 5in November 2020.However,.NET Framework 4.8.1 was released in August 2022.

Overview

Overview of.NET Framework release history

Version	CLR	Release date	Support ended	Visual Studio	Included in		Can be installed on		Replaces
					Windows	Windows Server	Windows	Windows Server
1.0	1.0	2002-01-15		Visual Studio.NET 2002	—	—	NT 4.0 SP6a,98,98SE,Me,2000,XP	NT 4.0 SP6a, 2000, 2003	—
1.0 SP1	↑	2002-03-19			—	—	↑	↑	↑
1.0 SP2	↑	2002-08-07			XP SP1[a]	—	↑	↑	↑
1.0 SP3	↑	2004-08-30	2009-07-14		—	—	↑	↑	↑
1.1	1.1	2003-04-09		Visual Studio.NET 2003	—	2003(x86)	NT 4.0 SP6a, 98, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Vista	NT 4.0 SP6a, 2000, 2003 (x64), 2008	1.0
1.1 SP1	↑	2004-08-30	2013-10-08		XP SP2, SP3[b]	2003 SP1, SP2 (x86)	↑	↑	↑
2.0	2.0	2005-10-27		Visual Studio 2005	—	2003 R2	98, 98SE, Me, 2000 SP3, XP SP2 95(unofficial)	2000 SP3, 2003	—
2.0 SP1	↑	2007-11-19			—	2008	2000 SP4, XP SP2	2000 SP4, 2003 SP1	↑
2.0 SP2	↑	2008-08-11	2011-07-12		—	2008 SP2,2008 R2	↑	↑	↑
3.0	2.0	2006-11-06		Visual Studio 2008	Vista	—	XP SP2	2003 SP1	2.0
3.0 SP1	↑	2007-11-19			Vista SP1	2008[c]	↑	↑	↑
3.0 SP2	↑	2008-08-11	2011-07-12		Vista SP2	2008 SP2,[c]2008 R2[c]	↑	↑	↑
3.5	2.0	2007-11-19		Visual Studio 2008	—	—	XP SP2, Vista 95 and later (unofficial)	2003 SP1, 2008	2.0, 3.0
3.5 SP1	↑	2008-08-11	2029-01-09[d]	Visual Studio 2008 SP1	7,8,[c]8.1,[c]10,[c]11[c]	2008 R2,[c]2012,[c]2012 R2,[c]v1709-23H2,[c]2016-2025[c]	↑	↑	↑
4.0	4	2010-04-12	2016-01-12	Visual Studio 2010	—	—	XP SP3, Vista SP1, 7	2003 SP2, 2008, 2008 R2	—
4.5	4	2012-08-15	2016-01-12	Visual Studio 2012	8	2012	Vista SP2, 7 SP1	2008 SP2, 2008 R2 SP1	4.0
4.5.1	4	2013-10-17	2016-01-12	Visual Studio 2013	8.1	2012 R2	Vista SP2, 7 SP1, 8	2008 SP2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2012	4.0, 4.5
4.5.2	4	2014-05-05	2022-04-26	Visual Studio 2015	—	—	Vista SP2, 7 SP1, 8, 8.1	2008 SP2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2	4.0-4.5.1
4.6	4	2015-07-20	2022-04-26	Visual Studio 2015	10	—	Vista SP2, 7 SP1, 8, 8.1	2008 SP2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2	4.0-4.5.2
4.6.1	4	2015-11-30	2022-04-26	Visual Studio 2015 Update 1	10 v1511	—	7 SP1, 8, 8.1, 10	2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2	4.0-4.6
4.6.2	4	2016-08-02	2027-01-12	Visual Studio 2017 15.0	10 v1607	2016	7 SP1, 8.1, 10, 10 v1511	2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2	4.0-4.6.1
4.7	4	2017-04-05	Same as parent OS	Visual Studio 2017 15.1	10 v1703	—	7 SP1, 8.1, 10 v1607	2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016	4.0-4.6.2
4.7.1	4	2017-10-17		Visual Studio 2017 15.5	10 v1709	v1709	7 SP1, 8.1, 10 v1607-1703	2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016	4.0-4.7
4.7.2	4	2018-04-30		Visual Studio 2017 15.8	10 v1803-1809	v1803-1809,2019	7 SP1, 8.1, 10 v1607-1709	2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, v1709	4.0-4.7.1
4.8	4	2019-04-18		Visual Studio 2019 16.3	10 v1903-22H2,11	v1903-20H2,2022	7 SP1, 8.1, 10 v1607-1809	2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, v1803-1809, 2019	4.0-4.7.2
4.8.1	4	2022-08-09		Visual Studio 2022 17.3	11 v22H2-24H2	v23H2,2025	10 v20H2-22H2, 11	v20H2, 2022	4.0-4.8

Notes:

a.^{^}.NET Framework 1.0 is an integral component ofWindows XP Media Center EditionandWindows XP Tablet PC Edition.Installation CDs for the Home edition and the Professional edition of Windows XP SP1, SP2 or SP3 come with.NET Framework 1.0 installation packages.

b.^{^}Installation CDs for the Home edition and the Professional edition of Windows XP SP2 and SP3 come with.NET Framework 1.1 installation packages.

c.^{^}.NET Framework is not automatically installed with this operating system. It must be installed either from a Windows installation media or from theInterneton demand.Control Panelor Server Manager always attempts the latter.

d.^{^}This date applies only when running on Windows 10 version 1809, Windows Server 2019 or later. On older versions of Windows,.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 adopts the lifecycle of the underlying Windows operating system.

.NET Framework 1.0

The first version of the.NET Framework was released on 15 January 2002 forWindows 98,ME,NT 4.0,2000,andXP.Mainstream support for this version ended on 10 July 2007, and extended support ended on 14 July 2009, with the exception ofWindows XP Media CenterandTablet PCeditions.

On 19 June 2001, the tenth anniversary of the release of Visual Basic,.NET Framework 1.0 Beta 2 was released.

.NET Framework 1.0 is supported onWindows 98,ME,NT 4.0(with Service Pack 6a),2000,XP,andServer 2003.Applications utilizing.NET Framework 1.0 will also run on computers with.NET Framework 1.1 installed, which supports additional operating systems.

Service Pack 1

The.NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 1 was released on 19 March 2002.

Service Pack 2

.NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 2 was released on 7 August 2002.

Service Pack 3

.NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 3 was released on 30 August 2004.

.NET Framework 1.1

Version 1.1 is the first minor.NET Framework upgrade. It is available on its own as aredistributable packageor in asoftware development kit,and was published on 3 April 2003. It is also part of the second release ofVisual Studio.NET 2003.This is the first version of the.NET Framework to be included as part of the Windows operating system, shipping withWindows Server 2003.Mainstream support for.NET Framework 1.1 ended on 14 October 2008, and extended support ended on 8 October 2013..NET Framework 1.1 provides fullbackward compatibilityto version 1.0, except in rare instances where an application will not run because it checks the version number of a library.

Changes in 1.1 include:

• Built-in support for mobileASP.NETcontrols, which was previously available as an add-on
• Enables Windows Forms assemblies to execute in a semi-trusted manner from the Internet
• EnablesCode Access Securityin ASP.NET applications
• Built-in support forODBCandOracle Database,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 1.1 is supported onWindows 98,ME,NT 4.0(with Service Pack 6a),2000,XP,Server 2003,Vista,andServer 2008.

Service Pack 1

The.NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 was released on 30 August 2004.It requiresWindows NT 4.0SP6a plusWindows Installer2.0. It is the last version to supportWindows NT 4.0SP6a,Windows 2000RTM-SP2 andWindows XPRTM-SP1.

.NET Framework 2.0

Version 2.0 was released on 27 October 2005. It was also released along withVisual Studio 2005,Microsoft SQL Server 2005,andBizTalk2006. A software development kit for this version was released on 29 November 2006.Support ended on 12 July 2011. It is the last version to supportWindows 98,Windows 2000SP3,Windows MEandWindows Server 2003RTM.

Changes in 2.0 include:

• Full64-bit computingsupport for both thex64and theIA-64hardware platforms
• Microsoft SQL Serverintegration: Instead of usingT-SQL,one can buildstored proceduresand triggers in any of the.NET-compatible languages
• A new hosting API for native applications wishing to host an instance of the.NET runtime: The new API gives a fine grain control on the behavior of the runtime with regards tomultithreading,memory allocation and assembly loading. It was initially developed to efficiently host the runtime inMicrosoft SQL Server,which implements its own scheduler and memory manager.
• New personalization features forASP.NET,such as support for themes, skins, master pages and webparts
• .NET Micro Framework,a version of the.NET Framework related to theSmart Personal Objects Technologyinitiative
• Membership provider
• Partial classes
• Nullable types
• Anonymous methods
• Iterators
• Data tables
• Common Language Runtime(CLR) 2.0
• Language support forgenericsbuilt directly into the.NETCLR

.NET Framework 2.0 is supported onWindows 98,ME,2000(with Service Pack 3 or higher),XP(with Service Pack 2 or higher),Server 2003,Server 2008andServer 2008 R2.An unofficial backport forWindows 95was created in 2024.Applications utilizing.NET Framework 2.0 will also run on computers with.NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5 installed, which supports additional operating systems.

Service Pack 1

The.NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 was released on 19 November 2007.It requires Windows 2000 with SP4.

Service Pack 2

The.NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 was released on 11 August 2008.It requires Windows 2000 with SP4 plus KB835732 or KB891861 update,Windows XPwith SP2 plusWindows Installer3.1. It is the last version to supportWindows 2000SP4 although there have been some unofficial workarounds to use a subset of the functionality from Version 3.5 in Windows 2000.

.NET Framework 3.0

Elements of the Microsoft.NET Framework version 3.0

.NET Framework 3.0, formerly called WinFX,was released on 6 November 2006. It includes a new set ofmanaged codeAPIs that are an integral part ofWindows VistaandWindows Server 2008.It is also available forWindows XPSP2 andWindows Server 2003as a download. There are no major architectural changes included with this release;.NET Framework 3.0 uses the sameCLRas.NET Framework 2.0.Unlike the previous major.NET releases there was no.NET Compact Framework release made as a counterpart of this version. Version 3.0 of the.NET Framework shipped with Windows Vista. It also shipped with Windows Server 2008 as an optional component (disabled by default).

.NET Framework 3.0 consists of four major new components:

• Windows Presentation Foundation(WPF), formerly code-named Avalon: A newuser interfacesubsystem andAPIbased onXAMLmarkup language, which uses3D computer graphicshardware andDirect3Dtechnologies
• Windows Communication Foundation(WCF), formerly code-named Indigo: A service-oriented messaging system which allows programs to interoperate locally or remotely similar toweb services
• Windows Workflow Foundation(WF): Allows building task automation and integrated transactions usingworkflows
• Windows CardSpace,formerly code-named InfoCard: A software component which securely stores a person's digital identities and provides a unifiedinterfacefor choosing the identity for a particular transaction, such as logging into a website

.NET Framework 3.0 is supported onWindows XP,Server 2003,Vista,Server 2008,andServer 2008 R2.Applications utilizing.NET Framework 3.0 will also run on computers with.NET Framework 3.5 installed, which supports additional operating systems.

Service Pack 1

.NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 was released on 19 November 2007.

Service Pack 2

.NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2 was released on 11 August 2008.

.NET Framework 3.5

Version 3.5 of the.NET Framework was released on 19 November 2007. As with.NET Framework 3.0, version 3.5 uses Common Language Runtime (CLR) 2.0, that is, the same version as.NET Framework version 2.0. In addition,.NET Framework 3.5 also installs.NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1 (with the later 3.5 SP1 instead installing 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2), which adds some methods and properties to the BCL classes in version 2.0 which are required for version 3.5 features such asLanguage Integrated Query (LINQ).These changes do not affect applications written for version 2.0, however.

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 andWindows Embedded CEdevices.

The source code of theFramework Class Libraryin this version has been partially released (for debugging reference only) under theMicrosoft Reference Source License.

.NET Framework 3.5 is supported onWindows XP(with Service Pack 2 or higher),Server 2003(with Service Pack 1 or higher),Vista,Server 2008,7,Server 2008 R2,8,Server 2012,8.1,Server 2012 R2,10,andServer 2016.An unofficial backport forWindows 95and later was created in 2024.Starting from Windows 8,.NET Framework 3.5 is an optional feature that can be turned on or off in control panel.

.NET Framework 3.5 is also available as a WindowsContainerimage, allowing old applications that rely on.NET Framework 2.0–3.5 to run in acontainerenvironment.

Service Pack 1

The.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 was released on 11 August 2008. This release adds new functionality and provides performance improvements under certain conditions,especially with WPF where 20–45% improvements are expected. Two new data service components have been added, theADO.NET Entity FrameworkandADO.NET Data Services.Two new assemblies for web development, System.Web.Abstraction and System.Web.Routing, have been added; these are used in theASP.NET MVCframework and, reportedly, will be used in the future release of ASP.NET Forms applications. Service Pack 1 is included withSQL Server 2008andVisual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1.It also featured a new set of controls called "Visual Basic Power Packs" which brought back Visual Basic controls such as "Line" and "Shape." Version 3.5 SP1 of the.NET Framework shipped with Windows 7. It also shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2 as an optional component (disabled by default). It is the last version to supportWindows XPSP2,Windows Server 2003SP1 andWindows VistaRTM.

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Client Profile

For the.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 there is also a new variant of the.NET Framework, called the ".NET Framework Client Profile", which at 28 MB is significantly smaller than the full framework and only installs components that are the most relevant todesktopapplications.However, the Client Profile amounts to this size only if using the online installer on Windows XP SP2 when no other.NET Frameworks are installed or usingWindows Update.When using the off-line installer or any other OS, the download size is still 250 MB.

.NET Framework 4.0

Key focuses for this release are:

• Parallel Extensionsto improve support forparallel computing,which targetmulti-coreordistributedsystems.To this end, technologies like PLINQ (ParallelLINQ),a parallel implementation of the LINQ engine, andTask Parallel Library,which exposes parallel constructs via method calls,are included.
• NewVisual Basic.NETandC#language features, such as implicit line continuations,dynamic dispatch,named parameters,andoptional parameters
• Support for Code Contracts
• Inclusion of new types to work witharbitrary-precision arithmetic(System.Numerics.BigInteger)andcomplex numbers(System.Numerics.Complex)
• Introduced Common Language Runtime (CLR) 4.0

.NET Framework 4.0 is supported onWindows XP(with Service Pack 3),Windows Server 2003(with Service Pack 2),Vista(with Service Pack 1 or higher),Server 2008,7andServer 2008 R2.Applications utilizing.NET Framework 4.0 will also run on computers with.NET Framework 4.5 or 4.6 installed, which supports additional operating systems. Support for.NET Framework 4.0 ended on 12 April 2016 and is no longer providing technical support, bug fixes, or security fixes for.NET Framework 4.0 vulnerabilities which may be subsequently reported or discovered. It is the last version to supportWindows XPSP3,Windows Server 2003SP2,Windows VistaSP1,Windows Server 2008RTM,Windows 7RTM andWindows Server 2008 R2RTM.

History

Microsoft announced the intention to ship.NET Framework 4 on 29 September 2008. The Public Beta was released on 20 May 2009.

On 28 July 2009, a second release of the.NET Framework 4 beta was made available with experimentalsoftware transactional memorysupport.This functionality is not available in the final version of the framework.

On 19 October 2009, Microsoft released Beta 2 of the.NET Framework 4.At the same time, Microsoft announced the expected launch date for.NET Framework 4 as 22 March 2010.This launch date was subsequently delayed to 12 April 2010.

On 10 February 2010, arelease candidatewas published: Version:RC.

On 12 April 2010, the final version of.NET Framework 4.0 was launched alongside the final release ofMicrosoft Visual Studio 2010.

On 18 April 2011, version 4.0.1 was released supporting some customer-demanded fixes forWindows Workflow Foundation.Its design-time component, which requires Visual Studio 2010 SP1, adds a workflow state machine designer.

On 27 October 2011, version 4.0.2 was released supporting some new features ofMicrosoft SQL Server.

On 5 March 2012, version 4.0.3 was released.

Windows Server AppFabric

After the release of the.NET Framework 4, Microsoft released a set of enhancements, named Windows Server AppFabric,forapplication servercapabilities in the form of AppFabric Hostingand in-memory distributed caching support.

.NET Framework 4.5

.NET Framework 4.5 was released on 15 August 2012;a set of new or improved features were added into this version.NET Framework 4.5 is supported onWindows Vistaor later.The.NET Framework 4.5 uses Common Language Runtime 4.0, with some additional runtime features.

.NET Framework 4.5 is supported onWindows Vista(with Service Pack 2),Server 2008(with Service Pack 2),7(with Service Pack 1),Server 2008 R2(with Service Pack 1),8,Server 2012,8.1andServer 2012 R2.Applications utilizing.NET Framework 4.5 will also run on computers with.NET Framework 4.6 installed, which supports additional operating systems.

.NET for Metro-style apps

Metro-style appswere originally designed for specific form factors and leverage the power of the Windows operating system. Two subset of the.NET Framework is available for building Metro-style apps usingC#orVisual Basic:One forWindows 8andWindows 8.1,called.NET APIs for Windows 8.x Store apps.Another forUniversal Windows Platform(UWP), called.NET APIs for UWP.This version of.NET Framework, as well as the runtime and libraries used for Metro-style apps, is a part ofWindows Runtime,the new platform and development model for Metro-style apps. It is an ecosystem that houses many platforms and languages, including.NET Framework,C++andHTML5withJavaScript.

Core features

• Ability to limit how long theregular expressionengine will attempt to resolve a regular expression before it times out.
• Ability to define the culture for anapplication domain.
• Console support forUnicode(UTF-16) encoding.
• Support for versioning of cultural string ordering and comparison data.
• Better performance when retrieving resources.
• Native support forZipcompression (previous versions supportedthe compression algorithm,but not the archive format).
• Ability to customize areflection contextto override defaultreflectionbehavior through theCustomReflectionContextclass.
• New asynchronous features were added to theC#andVisual Basiclanguages. These features add a task-based model for performing asynchronous operations,implementingfutures and promises.

Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)

Main article:Managed Extensibility Framework

The Managed Extensibility Framework or MEF is a library for creating lightweight, extensible applications. It allows application developers to discover and use extensions with no configuration required. It also lets extension developers easily encapsulate code and avoid fragile hard dependencies. MEF not only allows extensions to be reused within applications, but across applications as well.

ASP.NET

• Support for newHTML5form types.
• Support for model binders inWeb Forms.These let you bind data controls directly todata-accessmethods, and automatically convert user input to and from.NET Frameworkdata types.
• Support for unobtrusiveJavaScriptin client-side validation scripts.
• Improved handling of client script throughbundlingandminificationfor improved page performance.
• Integrated encoding routines from the Anti-XSS library (previously an external library) to protect fromcross-site scriptingattacks.
• Support forWebSocketprotocol.
• Support for reading and writingHTTPrequests and responsesasynchronously.
• Support for asynchronous modules and handlers.
• Support forcontent distribution network(CDN) fallback in the ScriptManager control.

Networking

• Provides a newprogramming interfacefor HTTP applications: System.Net.Http namespace and System.Net.Http.Headers namespaces are added
• ImprovedinternationalizationandIPv6support
• RFC-compliantURIsupport
• Support forinternationalized domain name(IDN) parsing
• Support forEmail Address Internationalization(EAI)

.NET Framework 4.5.1

The release of.NET Framework 4.5.1 was announced on 17 October 2013 along Visual Studio 2013.This version requiresWindows Vista SP2and laterand is included withWindows 8.1andWindows Server 2012 R2.New features of.NET Framework 4.5.1:

• Debugger support for X64 edit and continue (EnC)
• Debugger support for seeing managed return values
• Async-aware debugging in the Call Stack and Tasks windows
• Debugger support for analyzing.NET memory dumps (in the Visual Studio Ultimate SKU)
• Tools for.NET developers in the Performance and Diagnostics hub
• Code Analysis UI improvements
• ADO.NET idle connection resiliency

.NET Framework 4.5.2

The release of.NET Framework 4.5.2 was announced on 5 May 2014.This version requiresWindows Vista SP2and later.ForWindows Formsapplications, improvements were made for highDPIscenarios. For ASP.NET, higher reliability HTTP header inspection and modification methods are available as is a new way to schedule background asynchronous worker tasks.

.NET Framework 4.6

.NET Framework 4.6 was announced on 12 November 2014.It was released on 20 July 2015.It supports a newjust-in-time compiler(JIT) for 64-bit systems called RyuJIT, which features higher performance and support forSSE2andAVX2instruction sets. WPF and Windows Forms both have received updates for high DPI scenarios. Support forTLS1.1 and TLS 1.2 has been added to WCF.This version requiresWindows VistaSP2 or later.It is the last version to supportWindows VistaSP2 andWindows Server 2008SP2.

The cryptographic API in.NET Framework 4.6 uses the latest version ofWindows CNGcryptography API. As a result,NSA Suite B Cryptographyis available to.NET Framework. Suite B consists ofAES,theSHA-2family of hashing algorithms,elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman,andelliptic curve DSA.

.NET Framework 4.6 is supported onWindows Vista(with Service Pack 2),Server 2008(with Service Pack 2),7(with Service Pack 1),Server 2008 R2(with Service Pack 1),8,Server 2012,8.1,Server 2012 R2,10andServer 2016.Support for.NET Framework 4.6 ended on 26 April 2022.

.NET Framework 4.6.1

The release of.NET Framework 4.6.1 was announced on 30 November 2015.This version requiresWindows 7SP1 or later and is also the last version to supportWindows 8.New features and APIs include:

• WPF improvements for spell check, support for per-user custom dictionaries and improved touch performance.
• Enhanced support for Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) X509 certificates.
• Added support in SQL Connectivity for AlwaysOn, Always Encrypted and improved connection open resiliency when connecting to Azure SQL Database.
• Azure SQL Database now supports distributed transactions using the updated System.Transactions APIs.
• Many other performance, stability, and reliability related fixes in RyuJIT, GC, WPF and WCF.

.NET Framework 4.6.2

The preview of.NET Framework 4.6.2 was announced on 30 March 2016.It was released on 2 August 2016.This version requiresWindows 7SP1 or later and is also the last version to supportWindows 10(RTM—1511).New features include:

• Support for paths longer than 260 characters
• Support forFIPS 186-3 DSAinX.509certificates
• TLS 1.1/1.2 support forClickOnce
• Support for localization of data annotations in ASP.NET
• Enabling.NET desktop apps with Project Centennial
• Soft keyboard and per-monitor DPI support for WPF

.NET Framework 4.6.2 is also shipped as Windows container image.

.NET Framework 4.7

On 5 April 2017, Microsoft announced that.NET Framework 4.7 was integrated intoWindows 10 Creators Update,promising a standalone installer for other Windows versions. An update forVisual Studio 2017was released on this date to add support for targeting.NET Framework 4.7.The promised standalone installer for Windows 7 and later was released on 2 May 2017,but it had prerequisites not included with the package.NET Framework 4.7 dropped support forWindows 8and will only run on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and later.

New features in.NET Framework 4.7 include:

• Enhanced cryptography withelliptic curve cryptography
• ImproveTLSsupport, especially for version 1.2
• High-DPI awareness support in Windows Forms
• More support for touch and stylus in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• New print APIs for WPF

.NET Framework 4.7 is supported onWindows 7(with Service Pack 1),Server 2008 R2(with Service Pack 1),Server 2012,8.1,Server 2012 R2,10,Server 2016andServer 2019.

.NET Framework 4.7 is also shipped as a Windows container image.

.NET Framework 4.7.1

.NET Framework 4.7.1 was released on 17 October 2017.Amongst the fixes and new features, it corrects a d3dcompiler dependency issue.It also adds compatibility with the.NET Standard 2.0 out of the box.

.NET Framework 4.7.1 is also shipped as a Windows container image.

.NET Framework 4.7.2

.NET Framework 4.7.2 was released on 30 April 2018.Amongst the changes are improvements to ASP.NET, BCL, CLR, ClickOnce, Networking, SQL, WCF, Windows Forms, Workflow and WPF.This version is included withServer 2019.

.NET Framework 4.7.2 is also shipped as a Windows container image.

.NET Framework 4.8

.NET Framework 4.8 was released on 18 April 2019.It was the final version of.NET Framework released afterWindows Vistareachedend of lifeon 11 April 2017, with future work going into the.NET Coreplatform that eventually became.NET 5 and onwards.This release includedJITenhancements ported from.NET Core 2.1,High DPIenhancements for WPF applications, accessibility improvements, performance updates, and security enhancements.Over five months after its release, an update for Visual Studio 2019 was released on 23 September 2019 to add support for targeting.NET Framework 4.8. It supportedWindows 7(with Service Pack 1),Server 2008 R2(with Service Pack 1),Server 2012,8.1,Server 2012 R2,10,Server 2016andServer 2019and also shipped as a Windows container image. It is the last version to supportWindows 7SP1,Windows Server 2008 R2SP1,Windows Server 2012,Windows 8.1,Windows Server 2012 R2,Windows 10(1607–1809),Windows Server 2016andWindows Server 2019,although it is only supported as included in Windows 10 (1903–2004).

The most-recent release is 4.8.0 Build 4115, with an offline installer size of 115 MB (121,307,088 bytes) and a digital signature date of May 1, 2021.

.NET Framework 4.8.1

.NET Framework 4.8.1 was released on 9 August 2022.This version includes the nativeARM64support, WCAG2.1 compliant accessible tooltips, and accessibility improvements for Windows Forms. It is supported onWindows 10(20H2+),Windows Server 2022andWindows 11.

The most-recent release is 4.8.1 Build 9186, with an offline installer size of 74 MB (77,667,480 bytes) and a digital signature date of July 27, 2023.