I’m trying to achieve a similar affect in a WinForms application as a master form does with ASP.NET. My initial thoughts on this were to create a base form and declare it as abstract, but the compiler doesn’t seem to let me do this.

public abstract partial class Master : Form
{
    public Master()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }
}

So I have two questions:

• Why will the compiler not let me do this? Am I using the wrong syntax or is this a genuine restriction.
• Can anyone suggest a workaround or better way to do this?

EDIT:

InitializeComponent code:

    private void InitializeComponent()
    {
        this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
        this.mainMenu1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu();
        this.Menu = this.mainMenu1;
        this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Dpi;
        this.Text = "Master";
        this.AutoScroll = true;
    }