.NET Framework 3.5 install advice

[AndyM]

All I have installed currently is .Net 1.1  (not sure why)

I've finally seen something I'd really like (a tiny Windows Explorer utility) that requires .Net 3.5.

Can I just install 3.5 or do I have to install 2.0,etc first?

Are there downsides to having .Net framework installed?

A google search raised more questions than answers so I come here for some quick advice, or links to good info.

TIA,  Andy

[40hz]

You can just install Net 3.5. No need to install 2.0 first.

Other than the hit on your disk space, the only real downside (if you want to call it that) is that Net might introduce potential security vulnerabilities. But the same thing can be said about any other software you might already have installed.  Microsoft includes security patches for Net Framework as part of their regular Windows Update. Just be sure to stay on top of your Microsoft updates and you'll be fine.

[PhilB66]

SmallestdotNET - Get the smallest .NET Framework download possible.

[CWuestefeld]

In some of the .Net releases, MS has introduced tiny changes in behavior. It's possible that these changes could break an application, although I've never run into such a situation -- and I work with .Net all day, every day.

Given several versions of .Net on your machine, the .Net loader will prefer to run an application on the version that it was actually built for, so any of these incompatibilities will not be encountered anyway. Of course, if you've only got 3.5, then that's what the loader will use, and you'll almost certainly be OK.

[40hz]

In some of the .Net releases, MS has introduced tiny changes in behavior. It's possible that these changes could break an application, although I've never run into such a situation -- and I work with .Net all day, every day.

-CWuestefeld (January 15, 2009, 11:32 AM)

Thanks for sharing that.

I keep hearing about the Net Framework "version compatibility problem", but like you, I have never encountered it.

The only time I ever ran into a versioning issue was when somebody's installer was hard-coded to look for a specific version of Net, and would refuse to complete an install if it couldn't find it.

On a lark, I once installed an older version of Net, and then removed it after I completed one of those . Not surprisingly, the app in question ran just fine with 3.5 instead of the 2.0 version it was insisting on.

Don't know if that's what happens in most cases, but it was an interesting experiment.

[AndyM]

Thanks everyone!