Why Don't Most Windows Systems Have .NET Installed?

It's an all too common response to the question of using .NET code.

I can't guarantee clients will have .NET installed (actually I can pretty much guarantee they won't)

Exactly why the .NET Redistributable and it's prerequisites couldn't have been released in a service pack for the various MS platforms is beyond me. How successful will ClickOnce be if code can't run on most clients? No-touch deployment has to-date largely failed NOT JUST because you have to touch it first (change the security policy to do anything of consequence), but also because most clients don't have .NET installed anyway.

Update: dare we hope that it might be included in XP Reloaded?

Update: September 2004 - 6 months later - no luck.Microsoft just don't seem to even see it as a real problem - check out this post by Brad Abrams of Microsoft

4 Comments

  • Howdy,



    I know how you are feeling, whenever you go to develop an application with .NET, you always have to worry about whether or not the client has the framework installed -- it really is quite a drag.



    Even when you are just writing simple test apps for people on the internet, the dreaded question always arises, "Do you have .NET installed?" then the general response is either "huh??" or, "noway! that thing is a whopping 18meg download, that would take me hours on my dialup connection, get outta town!"



    So there we have it, it looks like we have to wait until whidbey is released and becomes a standard OS of choice, until then -- we face the dreaded question.



    Matthew Cosier

  • Nope.. it's not part of SP1 and not part of SP2 either (yet at least). But it'll be integrated as part of all new Windows versions (it's integrated into Win2k3).



    ClickOnce will however have some sort of prerequisite note before you'll try installing them. I think i heard somewhere that the ClickOnce installer will eventually have an automatic prerequisite downloader.. dunno if that's true but it would be very cool nonetheless :)



  • The .NET run-time is on the XP SP1 CD, not in the downloadable XP SP1 package.

  • I don't know Alex. I remember NT4 SP4 where they "patched" the absence of certain technologies. I have to say that I wouldn't be keen to see it roled into a service pack.



    Besides - you are deploying a service pack, why not just role the .NET FX along with it? From what I gather You can use SUS to get the job done nicely.

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