What is the difference between Property and Dependency Property

Question

Dependency properties are created the same way as properties.

Is a dependency property used only while creating a custom control?

Answer 1

The primary difference between a dependency droperty and a standard clr property is that a dependency property can be the target of a binding. This allows you to tie the value of the property to a value provided by some other object.

I would suggest that if you are making a custom control or markup extension, you generally want to expose any of its public properties as dependency properties so that the consumer of your control can better manipulate the settings in XAML (without having to do it in code-behind).

If your property will commonly be the source of a databinding (e.g. providing the Text for a TextBlock), I would recommend using a standard CLR property and having the containing class implement INotifyPropertyChanged.

Further....

A dependency property provides functionality that extends the functionality of a property as opposed to a property that is backed by a field. Often, each such functionality represents or supports a specific feature of the overall WPF set of features.

Resources

Data binding

Styles

Animations

Metadata overrides

Property value inheritance

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752914.aspx

Hope this helps.