Inheritance and the .NET Framework 

Visual Studio applications can use many of the classes found in the .NET Framework as base classes. Attribute classes, for instance, are always based on the class Attribute. Other useful .NET Framework base classes include Component, which is inherited from to define components, and Exception, which is inherited from to define custom exception classes.

The .NET Framework is more than a source for base classes; it ensures compatibility between classes created with different programming languages. Visual Basic classes can inherit from classes in assemblies created by any language supported by Visual Studio. The classes you create in Visual Basic can also be used as base classes by other .NET Framework programming languages.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough: Implementing Inheritance with COM Objects

Concepts

Inheritance and the Base Object Class
When to Use Inheritance