.NET Framework runtimes and legacy computers

We may have heard of the .NET runtime in one form or another. Some applications require it in order to run, and many user-interface components out there rely on that framework. But I’ve found out, to my disappointment, that Windows 2000 (or XP) and earlier do not have it pre-installed.

The .NET framework is a significant installation on any machine (a check in the Control Panel applet will easily show how bloated it is, ~100 MB for v2.0), and though speed and performance isn’t much of an issue on newer computers, I tried installing it on an older computer I have at home, and my computer’s slowing to a crawl. Besides, I think v2.0 of the network requires Windows 98 or later – it’s fine, since it’s built with MSVC 2005 and that compiler has a minimum OS requirement of Windows 98, to say the least. The real thing I don’t like is v3.5 . It’s built with MSVC 2008, and, as I’ve said in an earlier post, requires Windows 2000 or later.

One important item to point: in industrial automation, the time used for executing MSIL code often isn’t tolerable.

I guess the v3.5 runtime is bloated more than twofold over v2.0. The latter’s already fine for me, so why install a newer one?

There aren’t any issues with the .NET framework under Vista, since they’re pre-installed. To say, though, I, like many other users, don’t like Vista – it’s bloated on two sides: disk usage and memory usage, and the more important issue is compatibility.

Even with the v2.0 framework installed on my machine, I still stick with developing native C++ code, with a VC2005 compiler (since I recently began hating VC2008), and I can use Adobe Flash for my UI needs.

And I’m making all of my DLLs in my libraries in native x86/x64 code.