What is the difference between WPF application and normal Windows Application?

Answer 1

Some differences:

-WPF requires the 3.0 framework

- WPF uses a new markup language called XAML which is an xml based language that allows you for richer cotrols as well as an option to separate the presentation from the code behind.

-WPF makes it easier to plug into video drivers and create 2D,3D and silver light UI's.

To clarify the above point - Silverlight is a sub-technology of WPF. WPF is a Windows Vista / XP SP2 or later technology that incorporates Microsoft's DirectX to overhaul the old technologies used to create Windows desktop applications. Before WPF, we had a technology that was 15 years old and needed to allow greater power for people creating new applications. No more of the standard look and feel of a Windows application - now developers can have controls that have effects previously only limited to computer games and other complicated software. Essentially Silverlight is a project that Microsoft have that attempts to put these technologies out into people's browsers. In other words, if Microsoft could, they would have amazing applications that had the power of desktop applications but over the Web. However, Web Standards mean that all browsers must support previous technologies as well as enforcing newer standards such as JavaScript overhauls, new controls, data types such as XML, etc.