Thanks for the info. Are u using a commercial framework? Doesnt NET come w/ one?

No, the .NET framework doesn't come with what's commonly known as a "commercial framework".

The .NET framework is (as Craig said) a large collection of classes, divided into many categories. For example, there are classes for string operations, date math, disconnected data objects (ADO.NET), remoting, collections, etc.

The languages (VB.NET, C#) by themselves don't provide this functionality. The framework provides these capabilities (which you call from your language of choice). Some of the framework functions are fairly basic (some of the string functions), but others are very powerful and shield you from lower-level complexities (web services, remoting, etc.)

I've come aboard on projects that utilized commercial frameworks - but currently I'm not using one. I wrote my own set of reusable classes for things like data handling, forms management, reporting, etc.

Kevin