The Official Definition of Managed Code

The "official" definition of managed code from Partition 1 (Architecture) of the Tool Developers Guide in the .NET Framework SDK documentation is as follows:

Managed code is simply code that provides enough information to allow the common language runtime (CLR) to provide a set of core services, including these:

• Given an address inside the code for a method, locate the metadata describing the method

• Walk the stack

• Handle exceptions

• Store and retrieve security information

Managed code requires the .NET Framework (.NET FX, Fx, or just "the Framework" is the shorthand notation) to be installed on a computer to execute or run. The .NET Framework consists of three major parts: the CLR, the Framework Class Library, and ASP.NET.

You can install the .NET Framework on the platforms shown in Table 10.1.

Table 10.1. Platforms That the .NET Framework Can Be Installed On

Supports All of the .NET Framework	Supports the Entire .NET Framework Except Microsoft ASP.NET
Windows 98	Windows 2000 (all versions no Service Packs required)
Windows 98 SE	Windows XP Professional
Windows Me
Windows NT 4.0 (all versions Service Pack 6a required)
Windows XP Home Edition

Windows Server 2003 is the first operating system from Microsoft that shipped with the .NET Framework. All future operating systems from Microsoft will also include the .NET Framework, so you do not have to download or redistribute the parts that your code needs to run. You can install the .NET Framework on the existing platforms mentioned in Table 10.1 in various ways, but the easiest is to go to the Windows Update site (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) or just type windowsupdate in the address line of your browser. The Windows update site might prompt you to install required hotfixes or service packs before installing the framework. This is a good thing. Really.

You can find a lot of information on .NET by searching on the Internet. I want to keep this chapter focused on the aspects of building the managed code rather than on providing details of how .NET works, but this brief overview is necessary so we can get to the points of building managed code.