CLR Host

The Windows operating system does not provide support for running a CLR application. That support is provided by a CLR host. A CLR host is an application that is responsible for loading the CLR into a process, creating application domains within the process, and executing user code within the application domains.

Examples of hosts that ship with the .NET Framework include:

1) ASP.NET:
An ISAPI filter that ships with ASP.NET loads the CLR and does the initialization necessary to handle web requests.

2) Internet Explorer:
A MIME filter hooks into Internet Explorer versions 5.01 and higher to execute managed controls referenced from HTML pages.

3) Shell Executables:
When a managed application is launched from a shell, a small piece of unmanaged code loads the CLR and transitions control of the application to the CLR.