Guide to the Documentation
Provided here is guidance about the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) documentation. The linked documents are recommended starting points grouped according to specific interests and levels of expertise.
New to Windows Communication Foundation Programming
If you are new to programming with WCF and you just want to see sample applications that work, see the topics listed in Windows Communication Foundation Samples.
For a tutorial that walks through the basic steps of creating a WCF service and client, see Getting Started Tutorial.
If you are interested in the concepts behind WCF, see the topics in the Conceptual Overview section.
To see graphic examples of client/server security configurations, see Common Security Scenarios.
Programming In-Depth
If you are ready to start developing an application, see Basic WCF Programming.
If you are looking for guidance about a particular feature or capability of WCF, see the topics under WCF Feature Details.
If you would like to extend or customize WCF to suit your requirements, see Extending WCF.
For information about the tools that help to create and debug WCF applications, see Windows Communication Foundation Tools.
Configuration using XML files is a primary way of programming WCF services and clients. For reference documentation for the XML elements used in configuration files, see WCF Configuration Schema.
Troubleshooting
For information about troubleshooting common WCF problems, see WCF Troubleshooting Quickstart.
Using Windows Communication Foundation with Other Technologies
To create a service that communicates with ASP.NET clients, see How to: Configure WCF Service to Interoperate with ASP.NET Web Service Clients.
Integration with .NET Framework remoting is explained in Migrating .NET Remoting Applications to WCF.
To integrate an existing COM+ application with a WCF service or client, see Integrating with COM+ Applications Overview.
To integrate an existing COM application with a WCF service or client, see Integrating with COM Applications.
To integrate an existing MSMQ application with a WCF service or client, see How to: Exchange Queued Messages with WCF Endpoints and How to: Exchange Messages with WCF Endpoints and Message Queuing Applications.
To use Internet Information Services (IIS) to host a service, see Hosting Services.
To use WCF to consume a Web Services Extensions (WSE) 3.0 service, see How to: Access a WSE 3.0 Service.
WS-* Protocols Supported in Windows Communication Foundation
To see a list of protocols supported in the system-provided bindings, see Web Services Protocols Supported by System-Provided Interoperability Bindings. To see the list of system-provided bindings, see System-Provided Bindings.