.NET interview questions like this allow candidates to demonstrate their understanding of Common Language Runtime (CLR), a crucial part of the .NET Framework. Code written in C# or Visual Basic .NET will, when compiled, run only in the CLR, which provides functionalities such as garbage collection and memory management. The advantage of this is that managed code is platform-independent because it runs in the CLR rather than the operating system of the machine accessing the application.

Code written in other languages, such as C or C++, produces unmanaged code, meaning developers can’t rely on the CLR to provide this kind of portability. Managed and unmanaged code are interoperable. Examples of unmanaged code used in .NET include COM components, ActiveX interfaces and Win32 API functions.