What is COM?

Microsoft COM (Component Object Model) technology in the Microsoft Windows-family of Operating Systems
enables software components to communicate. COM is used by developers to create re-usable software
components, link components together to build applications, and take advantage of Windows services. COM
objects can be created with a variety of programming languages. Object-oriented languages, such as C++,
provide programming mechanisms that simplify the implementation of COM objects. The family of COM
technologies includes COM+, Distributed COM (DCOM) and ActiveX® Controls.

Microsoft provides COM interfaces for many Windows application programming interfaces such as Direct
Show, Media Foundation, Packaging API, Windows Animation Manager, Windows Portable Devices, and
Microsoft Active Directory (AD).

COM is used in applications such as the Microsoft Office Family of products. For example COM OLE
technology allows Word documents to dynamically link to data in Excel spreadsheets and COM Automation
allows users to build scripts in their applications to perform repetitive tasks or control one application from
another.

Versions

The .NET Framework stack.

Microsoft started development on the .NET Framework in the late 1990s originally under the name of
Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2000 the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were
released.[15]
Version 3.0 of the .NET Framework is included with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. Version
3.5 is included with Windows 7, and can also be installed on Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003
family of operating systems.[16] On April 12, 2010, .NET Framework 4 was released alongside Visual
Studio 2010.

The .NET Framework family also includes two versions for mobile or embedded device use. A reduced
version of the framework, the .NET Compact Framework, is available on Windows CE platforms,
including Windows Mobile devices such as smartphones. Additionally, the .NET Micro Framework is
targeted at severely resource-constrained devices.

Versi Version Release

Visual Studio Default in Windows
on Number Date
2002-02-
1.0 1.0.3705.0 Visual Studio .NET
13
2003-04- Visual Studio .NET
1.1 1.1.4322.573 Windows Server 2003
24 2003
2005-11-
2.0 2.0.50727.42 Visual Studio 2005 Windows Server 2003 R2
07
2006-11- Windows Vista, Windows
3.0 3.0.4506.30
06 Server 2008
2007-11- Windows 7, Windows Server
3.5 3.5.21022.8 Visual Studio 2008
19 2008 R2
2010-04-
4.0 4.0.30319.1 Visual Studio 2010
12