It needs on NT4 SP6
We have windows 2000 machines that need the runtime installed.
The text about the DLL do I not understand, do you want to tell that
framework is one DLL that is loaded every time with your program in memory
(as a runtimer does)?
When a managed executable is started, Windows treats it like any other
un-managed process. But the Windows loader examines the .idata section to
see if the MSCorEE.dll should be loaded into the process space. MSCorEE
stands for "Microsoft Component Object Runtime Executable Engine". Then the
loader obtains the _CorExeMain function inside the MSCoree.dll and fixes up
the stub function's JMP instruction in the managed EXE file. This is
basically from Jeff Richter's book called "Applied Microsoft .Net
Framework".
Then if you want to use the CLR from an unmanged executable, much like
ASP.NET does, then right from Don Box's book "Essential .NET: Volume 1":
"Ultimately, the CLR is implemented as a family of Win32/COM-based DLLs.
Although one can load these DLLs directly using LoadLibrary or
CoCreateInstance, these are not the preferred techniques to use when one is
loading the CLR into a new process. Instead, unmanaged programs are
encouraged to use the CLR's explicit facilities for loading and hosting the
runtime. The CLR exposes these facilities via a DLL called MSCOREE.DLL.
MSCOREE.DLL is sometimes called the "shim" because it is simply a facade in
front of the actual DLLs that the CLR comprises. As shown in Figure 10.7,
MSCOREE.DLL sits in front of one of two DLLs: MSCORWKS.DLL and MSCORSVR.DLL.
The MSCORWKS.DLL DLL is the uniprocessor build of the CLR; MSCORSVR.DLL is
the multiprocessor build of the CLR. The primary difference between the two
builds is that the multiprocessor build uses one heap per CPU per process to
reduce contention; the uniprocessor build has one heap per process. It is
the job of MSCOREE.DLL to select the appropriate build based on any number
of factors, including (but not limited to) the underlying hardware."
Like John said this will all change in the future releases of Windows
including Windows 2003.