Visual Basic® 2010 Unleashed

WPF Architecture

WPF relies on a layered architecture that is represented in Figure 31.1. The first layer is the Windows operating system. The second layer is constituted by the combination of two communicating layers: User32, which is the part of the operating system responsible for exchanging messages with applications, and the DirectX libraries, which are the real power of WPF. The next layer is named Milcore and is written in unmanaged code. It is responsible for integrating the unmanaged area of the architecture with the managed architecture that starts from the next layer, the Common Language Runtime, which is basically the root of every managed activity or layer. The PresentationCore is the first WPF layer that is responsible for implementing ...