Missing DLL and deployment issue

[Bob]

I know 'C', Java and Perl. I was looking for a newer generation language
to learn and apply so I took a course in VB.NET. The course went well
and I continued learning the material. I wrote a utility program in
Visual Basic.NET at home for work. I went to execute the program at
work on someone else's computer and it said I was missing a DLL. I've
seen those type of messages before so I thought, no big deal, until I
researched the matter on the Internet.

According to what I read, each computer running VB.NET (or any .NET
language) must have the entire (and huge) .NET environment on each
computer. Please tell me that I'm misunderstood. There's no way I can
install .NET on hundreds of computers at work.

When I took the course, the instructor and the book never mentioned this
huge limitation. I was hoping to learn VB.NET and C++.NET but if I
can't readily deploy the programs, it doesn't make sense to continue to
learn any of the .NET languages.

Did I misunderstand what I've read? If not, how do you deploy your
projects?

Thank you.

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Bob,

When I took the course, the instructor and the book never mentioned this
huge limitation.

I assume your own very private opinion. For me it is an advantage not every
time to have to deploy those runtimers and DLL as in past. This makes
deployment by instance over internet much easier.

However that is my private opinion.

Cor

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

I know 'C', Java and Perl. I was looking for a newer generation
language to learn and apply so I took a course in VB.NET. The course
went well and I continued learning the material. I wrote a utility
program in Visual Basic.NET at home for work. I went to execute the
program at work on someone else's computer and it said I was missing a
DLL. I've seen those type of messages before so I thought, no big
deal, until I researched the matter on the Internet.

According to what I read, each computer running VB.NET (or any .NET
language) must have the entire (and huge) .NET environment on each
computer.

That's true, and that's an advantage, because /all/ .NET applications
will use this framework.

Please tell me that I'm misunderstood. There's no way I
can install .NET on hundreds of computers at work.

There are ways to silently install the .NET Framework over a network, or
to download it using Windows Update. And there is no way around that
(sure, there are tools available that pretend to be able to do that, but
most of them are very expensive and from a technical point of view,
don't make much sense).

The .NET Framework is not only a huge class library, it's includes the
CLR which is the execution engine for .NET applications.

Did I misunderstand what I've read? If not, how do you deploy your
projects?

You can include the .NET Framework's setup in your project's setup
package:

My FAQ:

Using Visual Studio .NET 2003 to Redistribute the .NET Framework
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/vsredistdeploy1_1.asp>

Plug-In:

<URL:http://groups.google.com/[email protected]>

Bootstrapper:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/tools/bootstrapper/>

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Bootstrapper Plug-In
<URL:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=627921a0-d9e7-43d6-a293-72f9c370bd19>

<URL:http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/vsboot/> (old URL)

Download
<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/community/...f0a23-f529-4158-8e0a-d187d16f41f1&newsId=1981>

Framework 1.1:

Redistributing the .NET Framework 1.1
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/redistdeploy1_1.asp>

..NET Framework 1.1 Deployment Guide
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetframedepguid1_1.asp>

..NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable Prerequisites
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/NETFx1Redistreq1_1.asp>

..NET Framework Redistributable Package 1.1 Technical Reference
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetfxref1_1.asp>

Framework 1.0:

..NET Framework Deployment Guide
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/dotnetframedepguid.asp>

Using Visual Studio .NET to Redistribute the .NET Framework
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/vsredistdeploy.asp>

 

[Atara]

http://thinstall.com/demos/dotnet.php

Atara

 

[Simon]

At this stage, I find that writing .NET apps is really only good in
tightly controlled situations as not enough people have the .NET
framework installed. And at 20MB, it is not a simple download for
clients, nor do I expect it to be in high (public) usage until the
next OS release from MS. Personally, we use WTL for most of our work,
and I don't think you will find anything else that is easier to
distribute to client computers (WTL does not require any additional
distributes on top of the executable).


Simon Hayden
http://www.AutoUpdatePlus.com
Get software updates to your clients the Quick and Easy way!
Latest Version ==========>>> Client Computer

 

[Bob]

At this stage, I find that writing .NET apps is really only good in
tightly controlled situations as not enough people have the .NET
framework installed. And at 20MB, it is not a simple download for
clients, nor do I expect it to be in high (public) usage until the
next OS release from MS. Personally, we use WTL for most of our work,
and I don't think you will find anything else that is easier to
distribute to client computers (WTL does not require any additional
distributes on top of the executable).


Simon Hayden
http://www.AutoUpdatePlus.com
Get software updates to your clients the Quick and Easy way!
Latest Version ==========>>> Client Computer

Thank you very much for your feedback. I kind of guessed that if a 20MB
file had to be downloaded and installed, then .NET would only work in a
corporate environment.

Sigh. I was really hoping to learn the .NET languages as it seems that
nearly every job offer requires C++, VB, C# and I liked the .NET
environment (except for the 'help' system). Where I'm currently
working, installing .NET on every company computer would be pretty much
out of the question.