How to install application with .NET 2.0 SP2 on Vista?

Question

If my application requires .NET 2.0 SP2, how do I install this app on Vista? The .NET 2.0 SP2 redistributable will not install on Vista.

Answer 1

You might want to look at:

Which Version of .NET is Built into Windows?

For Windows Vista, you can't use the redist installer because .NET is included as a windows system component just like .NET 1.1 was included in Server 2003.

Vista RTM comes with .NET 2.0. Vista SP1 comes with the .NET 2.0 SP1 and Vista SP2 comes with .NET 2.0 SP2.

So, if the goal is to have the latest patched 2.0 and 3.0 frameworks, applying service packs is your mechanism. Those are not redistributable though so your application installer should only be checking and gating if not present.

Or you can install .NET 3.5 SP1. 3.5 SP1 gets around all of this by being a massive multiplatform bootstrapper that applies .MSU (Windows Update Packages) that are equivilant to whats in SP1 and SP2.

Answer 2

.Net versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 are all built on top of the 2.0 CLR, and each release was built on top of the previous. So effectively, each release was an extension of the previous release. MSDN provides a much more in depth explanation of this. So in your case .Net 3.5 should allow for you to run any application compiled in 2.0. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a way to install 2.0 specifically on Vista, and the general consensus is that the best method is to install .Net 3.5.

Edit: .Net 3.0 should also allow you to run your application (not sure of the compatibility with Vista) but the general recommendation, as well as my own, is to just go straight to 3.5.

Answer 3

You should install .Net 3.5 SP1, which includes 2.0 SP2.