Microsoft was pushing Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) a while back to replace Web Services ASMX files but I’m not sure how successful that was at least at the beginning.
What is the preferred method to use now? Have newer versions of WCF gotten better to use? I am mostly both creating and consuming the web services I currently use in MS technologies.
WCF is the replacement for ASMX. There will be no further development for ASMX (except for bug fixes), while WCF is being improved (since it was released on .NET Framework 3.0 it’s already got new features on 3.5 and 4.0). There’s even a codeplex project which previews some of the upcoming features on the next releases at http://wcf.codeplex.com.