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What are the differences between Windows Forms and WPF? And does either give the programmer a greater advantage?

Peter Mortensen
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James Litewski
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    Winforms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Forms. WPF, [start here](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms754130.aspx). Read these two first, understand them, then come back with specific questions (the differences between them are huge). [This question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/885266/wpf-vs-windows-forms) also has links to some of the many dupicates of this question. – slugster Jul 03 '11 at 05:03
  • The facts: WinForms came first. – Etienne de Martel Jul 03 '11 at 05:04
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    why the downvote? not like he said something vulgar. – KJW Feb 19 '13 at 00:38

1 Answers1

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A gist of the article WPF Vs. WinForms from MSDN:

WPF

Pros:

  • Powerful styling and skinning structure
  • Easy to create an own look and feel
  • Does support Windows Forms
  • The future technology for developing Windows Vista Applications
  • The ability to reuse existing code
  • Highly advanced databinding possible

Cons:

  • Declarative vs procedural code
  • Requires .NET Framework 3.0
  • Compared to Windows Forms, still in the development fase
  • Requires Dx9 compatible vidcard for advanced graphics

Windows Forms

Pros:

  • Extensive documentation can be found on the Internet
  • Plenty of examples
  • Does support WPF

Cons:

  • How long will this be supported? (I've read somewhere that Microsoft
    is only developing WPF now, only maintenance for Windows Forms)
  • Design your own look and feel in an application is a lot of work.
Peter Mortensen
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painotpi
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