Microsoft has released .NET Framework 4.6.2, bringing in plentiful of improvements and bug fixes. Among the updates announced, many were driven on the feedback of the users, including those submitted on UserVoice and Connect.
.NET Framework 4.6.2 is already loaded into Windows 10 Anniversary Update, hence if you are planning to update your Windows 10 installation with the anniversary version, then you don’t need to download NET Framework 4.6.2 separately.
Microsoft has also released the Web and Offline installer package for other supported operating systems. Windows Vista users though will be disappointed that the new version is not supported on their OS.
The new Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2, web Installer version is supported on following version of Windows,
- Windows 7 SP1
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 10
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Windows Server 2012 and
- Windows Server 2012 R2
New features that .NET Framework 4.6.2 brings
Microsoft has bought noticeable improvements in Base Class Library (BCL), Common Language Runtime, ClickOnce, ASP.NET, SQL, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
In Base Class Library (BCL), Microsoft has fixed the 260-character file name length limitation in System.IO APIs. This limitation doesn’t usually affect consumer applications and is more common on developer machines that build deeply nested source trees or use specialized tools that also run on Unix.
In the CLR, Microsoft is working with the Visual Studio team to provide a better debugging experience for null references in a future Visual Studio release.
Stacey Haffner mentions on the MSDS blog,
“In this release, we extended the CLR debugging APIs to enable the debugger to request more information and perform additional analysis when a NullReferenceException occurs. Using this information, a debugger will be able to determine which reference is null and provide this information to you, making your job easier.”
ClickOnce, for application deployment, now support TLS 1.1 and 1.2 protocols for .NET Framework versions 4.6.2, 4.6.1, 4.6 and 4.5.2. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and TLS 1.0 are no longer recommended or supported by some organizations, says the MSDS blog.
Bringing in improved async capabilities in ASP.Net, SessionStateModule and Output-Cache Module have been improved to enable async scenarios. Within weeks, Microsoft says that it will come up with async versions of both modules via NuGet, which will need to be imported into an existing project.
In the SQL client, NET Framework 4.6.2 brings two important enhancements for Always Encrypted around performance and security. Always Encrypted is a feature designed to protect sensitive data, such as credit card numbers or national identification numbers that are stored in a database. It allows clients to encrypt sensitive data inside client applications, never revealing the encryption keys to the database engine.
In Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), the framework is doing away from SSL 3 as the default protocol as it no more considered as secure. All existing clients should be able to negotiate a connection using at least TLS 1.0, says Microsoft.
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) now features a group sorting feature that can improve the performance of the group creation process, by moving comparisons of the grouping properties from the sort of the full collection to the sort of the groups.
Also, improvements to WPF includes Per-Monitor DPI Support and Soft Keyboard Support.
To read more on the .NET Framework 4.6.2 features or download it for your PC, click here. The Offline Installer can be downloaded here.
