Dotnet backward compatible?

[DimPrawn]

IIRC VS 2005 compiles always against 2.0?

VS 2008 allows you to select runtime 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5

If you have a machine with 3.0 or 3.5 installed and no 2.0, your project compiled against 2.0 in VS.NET 2005 should run fine.

[ASB]

IIRC VS 2005 compiles always against 2.0?

VS 2008 allows you to select runtime 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5

If you have a machine with 3.0 or 3.5 installed and no 2.0, your project compiled against 2.0 in VS.NET 2005 should run fine.

1) VS2005/2.0 Probably, but not as simple as that. It was entirely possible to download and use 3.0 or 3.5 (maybe even 4.0 though by this time we are well into later VS of course). However, can't remember all the details of how it was achieved but there was a certain amount of black magic involved. However, in practice it would be unlikely that it was anything other than 2.0.

2) Yes, however it doesn't guarantee no problems of course (though strictly this is the case with anything other than the exact framework it was compiled with of course). However I believe there are potential issues with 2.0 and a later version also installed. So called side by side versioning. I think there are cases where issues can be found if external strong named assemblies in the GAC are used (or something along those lines).

[Durbs]

I've never managed to get any serious application built for 1.1 to work on a machine that only has 2.0 installed (too many breaking changes in 2.0).

Yes, 1.1 and 2.0 are pretty different, 2.0 and 3.5 are not. You normally see both installed on the box and choose to target 1.1 or 2.0 within IIS for the app (assuming web app). They are separate installers, separate apps.

1.0 and 1.1 developed apps use 1.1
2.0 and 3.5 developed apps use 2.0 (even if the 3.5 framework is installed, it will show as 2.0)

You generally wont see 1.0 or 3.0 apps though as it was not really used.

[xoggoth]

Removed dotnet 2.0 redistributable on XP machine and checked my prog crashed. Then installed 3.5 and reinstalled my prog. It did not attempt to reinstal 2.0 and it all seems to works fine. Ta for all the unput.

PS Although it occurs to to me that not attempting to instal 2.0 could be just due to a registry entry left behind. Without dozens of different machines to test on it's hard to be sure of anything.

[ASB]

Removed dotnet 2.0 redistributable on XP machine and checked my prog crashed. Then installed 3.5 and reinstalled my prog. It did not attempt to reinstal 2.0 and it all seems to works fine. Ta for all the unput.

PS Although it occurs to to me that not attempting to instal 2.0 could be just due to a registry entry left behind. Without dozens of different machines to test on it's hard to be sure of anything.

All you need is 400 VPC sandbox and a couple of years and you can be reasonably sure......

As .NET becomes more integrated as part of the OS these issues will of course all be resolved.

Well stone me, this pig has just flown past my office window.....

[xoggoth]

Lots of sorts of things one would do with a major busines but with what is basically a retirement hobby that brings in about 2k a year not really economic.

Anyway, having done uninstall and reinstall again what happens (on this machine anyway) is that installing 3.5 also installs service packs for 3.0 and 2.0. So progs like mine designed for those versions find the right registry entries and instal seemlessly. Which is nice.