CODEWITHSUNDEEP
.netdeployment.net-2.0
crauscher
crauscher

Reputation: 6618

Running .net based application without .NET Framework

Is there a way to run .net based applications without .net framework installed. Is there a way to do this. Is there a software that can achive this. Commercial software is also possible.

Added:

Has anyone any experience with VMWare thin client?

Upvotes: 36

Views: 45939

Answers (13)

Mark Brito
Mark Brito

Reputation: 11

It's called statically linking the .net framework. Mono allows it and there are other vendors too. One case is if you need to run in windows pe.

Upvotes: 1

TWA
TWA

Reputation: 12826

There are a several different tools out there, a couple I have tried are:

You can find more by doing a search for ".NET Linker."

The two above, which I tried, seemed to work ok, but I never widely tested my code built with them. I tried them mostly out of curiosity.

My .NET apps are mostly used by IT departments. Installing the .NET framework is no big deal for them.

If you want to write software more targeted at end users then the .NET install may turn them off.

Upvotes: 27

Marwen Trabelsi
Marwen Trabelsi

Reputation: 4257

Old question but it can help other readers

You can use IKVM's binaries to run a Mono/.Net/Java application without any pre-installed framework. Just keep in your mind:

You should be able to execute it successfully. (On Windows .NET, remember to copy the IKVM dll's to the current directory.)

Please refer to the documentation to get a better view.

Upvotes: 1

Joop Muis
Joop Muis

Reputation: 31

If one does not want to use the .NET framework, I think it would be better to consider using an other programming language, which generates a stand-alone executable. Something like Delphi or, if the prize is important, Lazarus. But I'm sure there are other alternatives.

Upvotes: 3

Aiden Bell
Aiden Bell

Reputation: 28384

Use Mono, it is developed by Novell and is open-source

Edit: Question was about running without an installed runtime regardless of "supplier". Even so, here is a link to Mono's wikipedia entry. Enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)

Upvotes: 6

nawfal
nawfal

Reputation: 73283

This is one of the better explanations (among the many) I have found:

As a practical matter, it's not possible. Theoretically, a compiler could examine all the classes your application is using and include that code in your application, and compile the whole thing to native code. But, that still doesn't account for the CLR itself which contains core functionality like the garbage collector, assembly loader, metadata reader, etc. All these things are in native code, so they would have to be duplicated.

In addition, not all methods in .NET classes are in managed code. If you look at the disassembled code in Reflector, you'll see that some of the methods are marked with the MethodImplAttributes.InternalCall flag. This means that the actual implementation of the method is internal to the CLR. Any system that compiled C# (or any other .NET language) to native code would have to duplicate all of this, and that would be a herculean effort. And the resulting app would likely be quite large.

Upvotes: -1

Brendan Kowitz
Brendan Kowitz

Reputation: 1795

This really sounds like more trouble than its worth when you are working with an OS that supports .net.

.net 2.0 I think even comes down as a Windows Update these days, its only 26mb, and you only install it once. If you want something thats win32 native go back to unmanaged C++.

Also check out: SmallestDotNet (although not windows 2000, it mentions that "Soon, Microsoft will release a super-small download for XP SP2 machines that have no version of the .NET Framework".)

Upvotes: 2

anelson
anelson

Reputation: 2599

My team faced a similar problem. We needed to run our .NET 3.5 WPF app under Windows PE, which has no usable .NET framework. I evaluated all the options and found Xenocode PostBuild to be the best.

It's GUI is a bit counterintuitive and there were some bumps in the road getting it working, but it's been reliable since.

If you go that route, be advised you need to make sure your code is fully debugged before you generate the unmanaged executable, as you cannot debug the resulting app (unless you like assembler).

Also note that embedding the .NET framework makes for a big executable. ~20MB for 2.0, and ~40MB for 3.5.

Upvotes: 4

Tim Jarvis
Tim Jarvis

Reputation: 18825

In the interests of completeness and something to consider along with the responses re MONO.

Have you thought about maybe writing the app in native code instead? That way you can simply just deploy your exe. If you need a RAD environment for productivity, then tools like Delphi or C++ Builder will give you a very FCL like feel (Delphi's VCL was architected by Anders Hejlsberg before he moved to MS, so probably no co-incidence that C# feels very familiar to Delphites)

Upvotes: 1

Joel Coehoorn
Joel Coehoorn

Reputation: 416121

You can use mono to static-link all the framework dlls you need.

Of course, that limits you to the mono implementation of the framework, which is getting better but is still incomplete in a few places.

Update:
Based on your various comments, my best suggestion is to use version 2.0 of the framework. That will install just fine on windows 2000 with no trouble, and you can target it from Visual Studio 2008 if you need to.

I'm also a little curious as to your windows 2000 requirement. Are you deploying to business or home environments?

Almost no home users have windows 2000. Home users ended up with (shudder)Windows ME instead, which was released about the same time, and for that reason have almost completely moved on to Windows XP. You're more likely to see as windows 98 machine in a home than windows 2000, and not even Microsoft still supports windows 98.

On the other hand, an awful lot of businesses still use windows 2000 machines in large numbers. But business environments don't usually have a problem installing the .Net framework. They can even add it to machines automatically via group policy deployment if they have to.

Upvotes: 16

John Bellone
John Bellone

Reputation: 1371

You did not mention the type of software that you were looking to run so I figured I would add my two cents.

Microsoft has released Silverlight, a .NET based browser plugin, and they have been working with Novell to put out a version of Silverlight based upon the Mono compiler mentioned above called Moonlight. Microsoft natively supports Windows and Mac OS X 10.5.

If you want more information here are some links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

Upvotes: 3

Ari Roth
Ari Roth

Reputation: 5534

If you mean "Can I run a .NET application without having to install a framework at all?" then the answer is no, you cannot.

If you mean "Can I run a .NET application without having to install Microsoft's .NET framework and CLR?" then the answer is only if you can find an alternative, and Mono is the only one I know of.

Upvotes: 0

tekBlues
tekBlues

Reputation: 5793

The only alternative to .NET framework I know is MONO (for LINUX).

Upvotes: 1

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