In Chapter 3, Web Development – ASP.NET, HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, we looked at web development and how Visual Studio supports web developers. Whether it is used for traditional desktop applications or designing apps for Windows 8.1, the .NET Framework remains both popular and powerful.

In this chapter, we turn the spotlight on Visual Studio 2013'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 4.5.1.

You should be aware that like its previous version, the .NET Framework 4.5, Framework 4.5.1 is an in-place upgrade of its 4.X predecessors. While 4.5 and 4.5.1 are mutually exclusive (you can only have one of them installed), they will run side by side with earlier versions of the framework (version 3.5 SP1 and its predecessors).