[...]
I am concerned about conserving System Resources. I do not game and
mainly
use this PC as a web computer, but I do occasionally use it for other
apps.
I have .NET version 2.0 SP1. Will updating to ver. 3.0 use more System
Resources or should I stay with 2.0. Are there any noticeable benefits of
3.0 ? Thanks.
If you upgrade at all, you should upgrade to .NET 3.5, not 3.0.
Your system specifications look plenty high for supporting the latest .NET
versions.
As for the benefits, they will for the most part be feature additions.
The main "benefit" is that programs that are written to require the .NET
3.0 or later libraries will run. They won't unless you upgrade, but if
you aren't trying to run programs that require the more recent .NET
versions, this isn't something that would affect you.
No doubt there are some bug fixes and performance improvements, but .NET
2.0 was already very reliable and efficient, so unless you've having
specific problems now in those areas, you probably wouldn't notice a
difference.
The only cost you're likely to notice is the increase in disk space used.
The additional parts of the .NET libraries won't be loaded into memory
unless they are actually used by a program that needs them.
Personally, I wouldn't bother upgrading unless I had a specific need for
the newer version. That said, if you're writing .NET Framework programs
(which is implied, given that you're posting to a .NET programming
newsgroup), you may find that having the most recent version of the
Framework allows or even encourages you to then write code that takes
advantage of the newer features.
Pete
