Re: There is no .NET in Vista Code?

I.P. Nichols wrote:

His rant talks about new versions coming out every six months or so leading to "DDL hell" but IMO the most egregious complaint was that the windows update service required him to update a computer that likely hadn't been updated in some time, if ever, resulting in a long and tedious 70-80MB download with multiple reboots. He could have directly downloaded the runtime package and installed it without all that pain but then he wouldn't have anything to bitch about.

I often wonder in today's world what percentage of the targeted market of a commercial .NET program already has the runtime installed. I suspect in most cases it's quite large. I might be overly harsh but it does seem to me that a group of developers who really don't intend to develop for the .NET market seize on the runtime download "problem" to rationalize their decision.

But that's one reality of the marketplace. In *my* experience, very few potential customers run Automatic Updates, even with SP2, and it's worse in corporate environments*. In these cases, my potential customers would have to install the runtime. Do I get a redistribution license from Microsoft? Do I tell them exactly where to download just the runtime from? What if MS changes the links? Do I just tell them to run Windows Update over & over? If I'm a good advocate, I should help them get the runtime and the security patches they're missing, at least for .NET, if nothing else.

If .NET isn't preinstalled in the corporate image, it's not likely to get installed ever, until an application needs it.

* Home customers seem to be getting Automatic Updates turned on (if they have XP SP 2 and a broadband connection with "all you can eat" data plans). Corporate customers, on the other hand, actively shut off Automatic Updates for a number of "reasons", but don't ever deploy the patches. Those reasons - 1) We don't want the internet pipe clogged up as all the pc's hit the Microsoft AU site all at once; 2) We have to test the patches before we can approve users installing them (followed by "we don't have the resources to test the patches, so we don't deploy them); 3) SUS and WUS aren't 100% reliable, so we won't waste time on them; 4) We want to spend cash on fancy commercial patching solutions, but can't afford it

--

-Brion
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