.NET has become a popular technology among software developers and comsumers. I thought it would be a smart decision to develop a Windows Forms-based product in .NET that can be downloaded by thousands of clients around the world. The real problem may be setting frameworks that has grown significantly with .NET versions.
v2.0 had a decent installation of 22 MB, but the latest version of v3.5 goes beyond 150 MB and can be a decisive factor for clients. I have heard of some tools that make the type of “static” binding for .NET compilers (such as ILMerge) and can be used to create small stand-alone executables, but the question is, can these tools be used in a production environment? he ILMerge was a research tool, and I think he never did it to install VS.
I have a product for development that requires a very nice user interface that can be executed using WPF support. But I'm not sure if clients want to download a 150MB framework (not sure how big v3.0 is) for a 4MB application. If I develop in .NET 2.0, I will lose support for WPF. Are XP, Vista, Windows 7 with .NET platform preinstalled?
- UPDATED ON THE BASIS OF COMMENT -
The application will be downloaded from the website and will not have redistributable media.
- Use .NET 2.0 . This will not allow me to use WPF, so I’ll lose my bizarre stuff if I don’t use any third-party skin tool.
- , . 30 , WPF/WCF .
Win 98, ME, 2000 - Full install of Runtime required
Win XP SP2, SP3, 2003 (I think these have .NET 2.0)
Vista, 2008 - All version have atleast v3.0
Windows 7 - v3.5