Framework Services Namespaces in Visual Studio

The namespaces in the .NET Framework for interacting with a variety of back-end server resources include the following:

  • System.Diagnostics - consists of classes that enable you to debug your application and to trace the execution of your code. For more information, see the Trace and Debug classes. System.Diagnostics also provides classes that enable you to start system processes, read and write to event logs, and monitor system performance using performance counters. For more information, see the Process, EventLog, and PerformanceCounter classes.

  • System.DirectoryServices - consists of classes that provide easy access to the Active Directory from managed code. The classes in this namespace can be used with any one of the Active Directory service providers. The current providers are as follows: Internet Information Services (IIS), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Novell NetWare Directory Service (NDS), and Windows NT. For more information about the Active Directory, see Directory Services in the .NET Framework.

  • System.Deployment.Application - provides classes to enable the programming of custom upgrade behavior into a ClickOnce Deployment Overview application. These classes enable your deployment to provide information about whether an update is available, to provide an update for installation, and to download large files and assemblies on demand.

  • System.IO - provides classes, including the FileSystemWatcher class, which listens to the file system change notifications and raises events when a directory, or file in a directory, changes.

  • System.Media - contains classes for playing sound files and accessing sounds provided by the system.

  • System.Management - provides classes for managing information and events about the system, devices, and applications instrumented to the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) infrastructure.

  • System.Messaging - provides classes that enable you to connect to message queues on the network, send messages to queues, and receive or peek (read without removing) messages from queues.

  • System.ServiceProcess - provides classes that enable you to install and run services. Services are long-running executables that run without a user interface. They can be installed to run under a system account that enables them to be started at computer restart. Services whose implementation is derived from the processing in the ServiceBase class can define specific behavior for start, stop, pause, and continue commands, in addition to behavior to take when the system shuts down.

  • System.Timers - provides the server-based Timer component, which enables you to raise an event on a specified interval.

    Note

    There is also a Timer control for Windows Forms in the System.Windows.Form namespace and a Timer class in the System.Threading namespace.

  • Microsoft.Win32 - provides classes that handle events raised by the operating system and that manipulate the system registry.

See Also

Other Resources

.NET Framework Class Library in Visual Studio