The integration of ASP into the operating system differs remarkably from earlier versions of ASP, which were basically just add-ons to the operating system. Up until now, ASP has been implemented through an ISAPI DLL named asp.dll, plus a few new system files and the ASP user components that came as part of the package (such as the Browser Capabilities component).

The NGWS framework reflects the information technology industry's changing view of the needs for creating, deploying, and maintaining Web services of all types – ranging from simple client applications to the most complex distributed architectures. The overall concept and strategy is part of the Windows Distributed Internet Applications (DNA) architecture.

However, the important part to recognize is that the framework is not just there for ASP+. It acts as a base for all kinds of applications to be built on Windows. The following diagram shows how the runtime framework supports ASP+ Applications:

The NGWS framework provides an execution engine to run code, and a family of object oriented classes/components that can be used to build applications. It also acts as an interface between applications and the core operating system. You might ask why we need such a layer, when existing applications can talk to the core operating system and services quite easily. The reason is that it allows applications to use the operating system to best advantage, in a standard way that permits faster and simpler development – something that is increasingly necessary in today's competitive commercial environment.

To achieve these aims, the runtime framework implements many of the features that the programmer, or the specific programming language environment, had to provide themselves. This includes things like automatic garbage collection, rich libraries of reusable objects to meet the needs of the most common tasks, and improved security for applications. This last point, of course, is becoming more important with the spread of networked applications – especially those that run over the Internet.