If you're doing complex uis, wpf is the way to go.

Windows forms vs wpf. Supported on any windows version. If you are looking to pick a framework it is important that you have a good understanding of the features of each framework. Windows forms is more or less a lightweight wrapper on top of win32 / mfc, which means its extensibility in.net is not that good in all cases.

The tablet pc windows forms platform, the tablet pc com platform, and the windows presentation foundation (wpf) platform. It has much greater databinding capabilities. Like windows forms, it's a managed framework, but the design is modular and reusable.

The underlying presentation language is based on xaml, an xml language. In windows forms, you could use c++ and gdi+ or directx directly, use timer control, etc. With wpf, it is easier to add 3d, video, and animations to your application.

Unlike windows forms, it is based on the directx graphics api, so great for multimedia and special effects. The learning curve is steeper than windows forms. Here are the main features of wpf:

Many windows forms controls have equivalent wpf controls, but some windows forms controls have no equivalents in wpf. Wpf requires a dx9 compatible video card for creating advanced graphics; There are essentially three platforms that support digital ink:

Designer is available, but developers usually prefer to create the design from code using declarative xaml. It does not offer any rich, interactive, animated, hardware accelerated, vector 2d and 3d capabilities as compared to wpf. Wpf is a new ui framework implemented from scratch.