Web pages, due to the nature of the standard HyperText Transfer Protocol ( http ), are regenerated each time the page is posted to the server.

Ordinarily, this would mean that all information associated with the page, such as the values of controls contained within the page, would be lost with each round trip from the browser to the server and back. See Web Forms Page Processing.

To overcome this inherent limitation, though, the ASP.NET page framework includes various options to help preserve the state of the page ( i.e., the property values of the page and its controls ) across round trips. This means that for most ordinary form processing, you do not need to worry about saving and restoring values with each round trip.

This also means that if you have some application-specific values that you want to preserve ( values not associated with controls ), you can do so by taking advantage of the automatic state management facilities provided by the framework, which basically involve storing information either on the client or on the server.

The following topics provide information on the available options and their distinct advantages and disadvantages, to help you decide which option would be most suitable for your need.