I am working on a WPF application that requires .NET 4.0 to run. The machines on the enterprise are all running .NET 3.5 SP1. Is it possible to deploy the application with its .NET 4 DLLs without having to install the full .NET 4 Framework on the client machines?
There are two parts of our implementation marries us to .NET 4.0
The use of the Data Grid user control (this is the easiest issue to overcome).
The use of the enableUnsecuredResponse property for my WCF binding.
<bindings>
<customBinding>
<binding name="CadsBinding">
<textMessageEncoding messageVersion="Soap11"/>
<security enableUnsecuredResponse="true" authenticationMode="UserNameOverTransport" allowInsecureTransport="true">
<secureConversationBootstrap/>
</security>
<httpTransport authenticationScheme="Basic"/>
</binding>
</customBinding>
</bindings>
Microsoft has release the following Hot Fix: A hotfix that enables WCF to send secured messages and to receive unsecured responses, and to send unsecured messages and to receive secured responses, is available for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 but if I am to deploy this Hot Fix to the enterprise, I might as well do that for the .NET 4.0 Client Profile and resolve all my issues then and there.
I am aware of the .NET 4.0 Client Profile installation. What I'm trying to avoid is the need to push out the installation of the framework for just my application.
My Current Thought:
It can't be done. Even if I deploy the .NET 4 DLLs that are referenced, they will still try to be handled by an older version of the CLR which won't be able to understand them.
You are going to need .NET 4, but there is the Client Profile
The .NET Framework 4 Client Profile is a subset of the .NET Framework 4 that is optimized for client applications. It provides functionality for most client applications, including Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Forms, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and ClickOnce features. This enables faster deployment and a smaller install package for applications that target the .NET Framework 4 Client Profile.
This is a smaller download and smaller footprint version of the framework.
No. Those DLLs depend on assemblies registered in the GAC. Without .Net framework installed you don't get those assemblies. Why not just deploy with an installer?
No it is not possible to deploy an application which was compiled against 4.0 to a machine which only contains .Net 3.5 (any version). The 4.0 version of the runtime must be installed on the machine.
However it is possible to use Visual Studio 2010 (and 2008) to compile an assembly targeting 3.5. This would then be deployable to a machine only having the 3.5 framework. This feature is known as multi-targeting and here is a link to a tutorial on the subject
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb398197.aspx
it depends on what features from 4.0 you use... some of them are just syntatic sugar and the compiler generates IL for that. For example, the new "dynamic" keyword uses the new Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), which is only available as part of .net 4.0. So, if your app uses that, there's no other way than to install .net framework 4.0 in the machine
For me, the best idea would be to set in the project properties the target version to 3.5 (specified in the properties for your project in Visual Studio), and if there aren't any errors, you can follow this general
guidelines to test whether the app will work or not.
Related
I have developed a Windows application in the 4.0 framework. After deploying my application I have tried to install it in a Windows XP SP2 system, but when I try it I get some kind of requirement error. So I decided to change my application from 4.0 to the 2.0 framework so that it can be installed in any windows OS. Before that I tried with 3.5 and 3.0 but the framework's setup size exceeded 200mb, so I chose 2.0 because it already comes along with windows xp or later. The problem I am having is while changing my framework from 4.0 to 2.0 i'm getting reference problems with system.core and system.linq so now I cant build my project. What needs to be done to fix these reference errors?
The problem is that System.Linq, for example, didn't exist in .NET 2. If you are using anything that required System.Linq methods (such as LINQ or any extension methods), you'll have to rewrite that portion of your code to use .NET 2 only options.
Personally, I would just target .NET 3.5sp1 or .NET 4, and include the web installer, as this is a small addition to your deployment (the 4.0 web installer is under 1mb - many installers include a way to just package this instead of the full framework). Most systems already have .NET 3.5sp1 (and many have 4.0), so the effort to include this in your deployment is typically far smaller than trying to rework your application to avoid it.
We have a large & complex system running under .Net 4.0. We want to start introducing code written for .Net 4.5, but can't (yet) assume that .Net 4.5 is installed on all the developer machines, build machines and test labs. So I'm looking for a way to compile certain projects in MSBuild using assemblies which are available on disk, on machines which have only .Net 4.0 installed.
Per the documentation it seems possible. The 4.5 reference assemblies are available in the msbuild environment, and I've been experimenting with the TargetFrameworkVersion, FrameworkPathOverride and TargetFrameworkMoniker attributes, but so far without success.
Any hints, suggestions or working samples would be most helpful.
To build a .NET Framework 4.5 application, you must also have the .NET Framework 4.5 reference assemblies.
Installation
The .NET Framework 4.5 replaces the common language runtime (CLR), targets, tasks, and tools of the .NET Framework 4 without renaming them. Essentially, it creates a modified and improved .NET Framework 4.
I am tasked with requirements for the production machine (Server 2008 R2), and am wondering if this project setup would work with only .NET 4.0 installed and IIS 7 for WCF Service. Is .NET 3.5 needed to load assemblies that that are targeted to it?
A VS2010 solution contains several projects:
Projects targeted to .NET 3.5:
Model (DTO) classes
Business Logic Layer
Data Access Layer
Interfaces for BLL and DAL
Projects targeted to .NET 4.0:
WCF Service project wrapping BLL methods
In development, there's 2.0, 3.5 and 4.0 installed on the machine and everything works fine with WCF hosted in IIS6.0
By default, Server 2008 R2 comes with .Net Framework v2.0.50727 installed but you can install the .NET 3.5 Sp1 using: Server Manager -> Features -> .Net Framework 3.5.1 Features. I think .NET 4.0 Client is not enough to run your BLL if it's compiled with .NET 3.5
In case anyone else runs in to the same issue:
.NET 3.5 isn't required as the released DLLs run just fine with only .NET2 and .NET4 installed.
WCF Service targeted to .NET4 runs OK under IIS 7.0 with no modification or special configuration.
Could you kindly advise if we need to have .NetFrameWork Installed on Client's computer, if we make setup by using ClickOnce technology?
Thanks
ClickOnce is a part of .NET Framework 2.0 and later, so yes, you need at least .NET Framework 2.0 installed on a machine in order to use it. See also here:
The installation engine for ClickOnce
is in the .NET Frameworks v2.0... as a
result, the .NET Frameworks needs to
be on the machine in order to install
a ClickOnce deployed application. The
Generic Bootstrapper (setup.exe) will
install the .NET Frameworks v2.0
before launching the ClickOnce
application deployment.
Presently .Net 4.0 is not supported on Azure.
This thread indicates that you will not be able to use .Net 4.0 with VS 2010 until it is supported in the cloud.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com
I'd like a way to start developing Azure applications locally utilizing the new features of .Net 4.0. I am fine with not being able to deploy these applications until Azure officially supports it.
From within the VS IDE; I tried replacing .Net 3.5 application references with newer .Net 4.0 references and Visual Studio crashes.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks,
Paul
An update to this old thread. .Net 4.0 has been supported since Azure SDK 1.2
Some features from .NET 4.0 can be added to your application through other means. For example, the recently-released Reactive Extensions for .NET 3.5 SP1 includes a back ported release of Parallel Extensions. And the Managed Extensibility Framework contains the Lazy class and Tuple struct. As long as you set "Copy Local" to true on any libraries that you add, your application should run (and deploy) successfully.
Obviously, these aren't all the features that are new in .NET 4.0, and not all of them will can be ported back to .NET 3.5 like these can.