What does it really mean to target a framework, and how do I maximize compatibility?

Question

Greetings all,

This has confused me ever since I first started coding in C#. My goal is to create an assembly that will run on the most recent .NET framework the us

Answer 1

.NET is backward-compatible, this means if you select .NET Framework 2.0 as target framework, it will run on installed version 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0. But if you select e.g version 4.0 as target framework, it will only run if you have version 4.0 installed.