I have created a C# 2010 application and now when I install it on user application it asks for complete dot net framework. Is it possible if I can only put required dll files with my application instead of installing complete dot net framework on user machine ?
No it is not possible
The .NET framework is more than just assembly to copy on the target computer. It is a more complex infrastructure that interact with the OS when an executable is loaded and, if it contains IL instruction, it compile it just in time in order to have it running. So non chanches in order to me to have it working without a .NET framework setup, that can be done in a separate step, or by creating a Setup for your app with the proper framework version indicated as a prerequisite.
An overview of the framework can be found here, but many more others are available in the net, you should read it to understand why is not a just matter of functions you need or not.
You may choose to target .NET Framework Client Profile. That would decrease download size of .NET files. See this link for more details on subject: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc656912.aspx#targeting_the_net_framework_client_profile
No, this is not possible. In order to install and run an application targeting the .NET Framework, the user must have the appropriate version of the .NET Framework installed on his/her computer.
If you want to make things easier, you should distribute your application with a setup program that ensures the .NET Framework is automatically installed along with your app. There's no reason the user should have to download and install the .NET Framework themselves. You can even create a setup program right from Visual Studio, so there's no excuse not to use one. It also makes managing dependencies and versioning conflicts much easier.
If you're really worried about the size of your dependencies and are targeting .NET 4.0, you can require only the Client Profile, which is a subset of the .NET Framework optimized for client applications. You'll have to set your project's Properties to target the .NET 4.0 Client Profile, and ensure that you're not using any of the assemblies it omits.
I hardly recommend wasting too much time on this, though. At last count, the Client Profile was only about 15–16% smaller than the full version—not an amount that makes much difference on the fast Internet connections found in most parts of the world today. And even less of a problem if you distribute on real media.
If you're absolutely dead-set on delivering an application without any dependencies (as comments to other answers suggest), you've got a hard road ahead of you. For starters, you'll need to drop .NET and C# entirely, and switch instead to an unmanaged language like C or C++. That's a very different programming environment than C#. Even if you're the best C# programmer in the world, there's going to be a significant learning curve to pick up C++.
And that still doesn't solve all of your problems. C++ applications compiled using a modern version of Visual Studio will still require that the appropriate version of the C Runtime Library be installed on the user's machine. This is, of course, a much smaller package than the entire .NET Framework, but you can't count on it always being there, so you'll need to install it along with your application.
Moreover, unlike the .NET Framework (which has WinForms, WPF, Silverlight, etc.) there is no GUI library bundled with C++. And if you choose any GUI library other than the native platform API (for example, Qt, which is quite popular for reasons that I still find inexplicable), that gives you an additional dependency. You mention Google's applications a couple of times as a model. Google Chrome targets the Win32 API directly and has written a bunch of their own code to draw their custom GUI on top of that base framework. That's really the only way you're going to eliminate dependencies entirely. And delay your app to market for a significant period of time.
Related
I have created a new application on C# 2010. After creating a Setup file I came to know that for installation purposes user must have a dot net framework. Is there any way I can get rid of installing dot net framework on a user computer. Each time I try to install my application on the user computer it redirects to install the dot net framework. Any suggestion?
Well that's a problem; because of the design of .NET applications.
Here's some references for you:
Visual C#
"C# (pronounced "C sharp") is a programming language that is designed for building a variety of applications that run on the .NET Framework." [first sentence]
Intro to C# and .NET
As the comments on the question attempt to imply, the .NET Framework is required in order to execute .NET applications.
You have two choices, really:
Require that users have the .NET Framework installed. This is the most common choice, for reasons that will become clear in a moment. It's not unheard-of to have such requirements. It's similar to requiring that a user have Windows installed in order to run your Windows application.
Distribute the .NET Framework with your application installer. This is possible, but less often used because the .NET Framework is large compared to the average application. However, if you must do this, then the option is at least available. Some quick Googling brought me to this helpful blog post.
This isn't possible. C# is built on the .NET framework, so any C# app requires that a version of .NET be available. At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework#History, you can see what .NET framework versions are available in various versions of Windows. The short story is that XP doesn't include anything, Vista includes 3.0, and Windows 7 includes 3.5. If you build for one of these versions, then on those OSes, your users won't need to install anything extra. Using the Client Profile instead of the full .NET can also help reduce or eliminate installs your users will need to do.
Unfortunately No. Its not possible.
To explain it simple terms.
Suppose if you have written only 1 Line of code where you would have simply declared an int variable, who will tell OS that it should create a space in memory?
That framework does exactly that creates basic environment to run your app in a System.
OOPs says about Real-world modeling and Relationships, so let me give you one from it.
Think yourself to be the C# app and Mother Nature/Environment(Greenry) to be .Net Environment.(.Net is called an Environment)
Can you survive without mother nature? From first second that you are in this world, you breathe. Who provides you that oxygen. MOTHER NATURE
While creating installation bundle you can add dot net frame work exe file as prerequisites, then while installing your application it can check whether the system having .net framework or not. if it is not installed it your application can install the frame work.
When you are using managed languages to writing applications you agreed to use their vm, c# codes compiles to IL which needs dot net framework for executing.
.net framework by default exists on windows 7,8,8.1 and 10 and I don't think that this is a challenge.
but if you insist on it so there is a way by using Mono, just remove features that does not support in mono from your project.
first install mono and cygwin, then copy your exe and mono.dll file to a folder, be sure that your file name is not long because in some cases bundling faild,now you can start bundling using mkbundle command.
after bundling finished you have a exe file that can run without .net framework
hope this help you
I have the same issue and want the app to setup using the existing dot net framework version (4.6), because the app setup requires 4.7.2 version that the PC doesn't meet the requirements
How can I check what objects, tools, variables, anything... are used from .NET 2.0 in a C# application.
How can I get a C# application run without .NET 2.0 ?
UPDATE:
sorry, I didn't clarify enought. Here's my situation: I have developed a pretty simple application in C#: embeded browser which displayes static webpages with an option of searching inside of these html pages. I'm using simple textbox, buttons components for this.
The application will be distribuited for people wich have very old PCs, even with windows 95. I would like the app to be runable on it, or at least on win 98, without telling the people to install .NET 2.0, as the users don;t really have PC usage skills :) .
I'm using a dataGridView as well.
You can have a look at this : http://www.remotesoft.com/linker/
"The mini-deployment tool puts
together the minimum set of CLR
runtime files and dependent assemblies
that can be simply copied to a single
folder on a target machine, and your
application runs as if the whole
framework is installed. Since the
installation is isolated into a single
folder, there will be no conflicts
with future .NET installation. When
linking is used for the dependent
assemblies, it will further reduce the
file size."
You may need to clarify a bit more.. do you want the app to run without .Net at all? Or you want it to run in .Net 3.5 without .net 2.0 bits?
If its the latter, then simply don't reference assemblies that are compiled in .net 2.0 (check the properties on the reference you have added). If its the former, then its really not feasable. Yes its possible, but it means deploying parts of the framework with your app, but then, you'd be deploying all the bits, including the 2.0 bits.
Your're question really needs more information though, it doesn't make much sense currently. Sorry. =)
To make sure it runs without .NET 2.0, compile it with the .NET 1.1 compiler.
But this seems like not a good idea. I'd recommend revisiting your requirements.
Win98 wasn't shipped with .NET. Using .NET v1.1 won't get you much more platform penetration than .NET 2.0, if any.
IT looks like windows 98 supports the .net framework. See this answer for details:
OS Compatibility for various .NET Framework versions
You cannot run a .NET application (i.e., that uses the CLR) if you haven't installed the corresponding .NET Framework binaries (i.e., that contains the CLR) directly or indirectly.
Period.
I wrote some small apps using .NET 3.5 but now I am stuck with deployment problems. My customer will likely to be pissed off when he learns that he will have to download a 231megs dependency (.NET framework 3.5) which installs for 30 minutes (!!!) on an average machine. All, just to run my tiny apps.
Offline distribution is also problematic, since the customer wants the program to fit on a Mini CD (185 mega bytes maximum)
What can I do? I really like .NET, but now I feel hopeless. With almost any other choice (c,c++,python) I would have saved this headache.
update: this is small data processing software and mostly deployed in offline situations on nettops. I can't host is from the net.
You can use the .NET Client Profile installer instead of the full framework. Should be around 28MB and be a pretty quick install.
http://blogs.windowsclient.net/trickster92/archive/2008/05/21/introducing-the-net-framework-client-profile.aspx
Perhaps you should target the .NET 2.0 framework until your clients are ready to upgrade. Even if you weren't using .NET you will still have these headaches. If you were using Python you would still have to ensure that the user had the proper version of Python installed.
You should try it with the compact .net framework it's only 34mb big, and should be able to be installed quite quickly.
Please remember if you use the .NET setup bootstrapper application, it will only download the parts of the .NET framework that it needs. Usually less than 100mb, in a worst case scenario where they don't even have .NET 2.0 installed.
Also, depending on your application you may be able to use the .NET 3.5 Client Only framework, it is considerably smaller, however I do not know if there is a offline download for it.
You can set your application to use the Client Only framework from the project properties, just check the "Client Only framework subset" checkbox.
This won't work if your application uses WPF or WCF, I think. I'll update this later if I find out I am wrong.
EDIT:
One more option is to use something like Xenocode Postbuild or Xenocode Virtual Application (http://www.xenocode.com) studio to embed the .NET framework into your application so that the client would not need to have .NET installed on each machine.
However, this will make your application exe much larger. A project I work on uses Xenocode Postbuild to embed the .NET framework 3.0 and the exe size ends up being around 50mb, however, the app runs great off of a flash drive.
I want to develop a small utility for windows and I prefer doing that in c# because it is easier (I'm a java developer).
The utility will be available for download by many people and I assume some of them will not have the .net framework installed (is this assumption correct, say I target win xp and above?)
My question is: can a c# application be compiled in a way that it will not require the .net framework installed?
Normally, you will need the .NET Framework being installed on the target system. There is no simple way around that.
However, certain third-party tools such as Xenocode or Salamander allow you to create stand-alone applications. See this related question:
Is there some way to compile a .NET application to native code?
As these solutions are not straight-forward and require commercial products I would recommend you to create a simple Visual Studio Setup and Deployment project. In the properties of the project you should include the .NET Framework as a pre-requisite. The setup.exe created will then automatically download and install the .NET Framework prior to installing your application.
No, it will need the .Net framework installed. Note though that you will need only the redistributable version, not the SDK.
A minor aside - but in this scenario, consider developing the utility in Silverlight - it has a much smaller footprint and is supported on a number of operating systems. This might allow you to get the coverage including people who don't already have .NET.
If you need "normal" .NET, then "Client Profile" is perhaps an option.
You can probably also include the .net framework installer in your application.
In a related question, Can you compile C# without using the .Net framework?, it's mentioned you could do this using mkbundle from mono. I haven't tried it myself so I can't comment on if it's the way you should go, but you may want to consider it.
Is it possible to force the C# compiler to pull all the referenced calls out of the framework and pack them into dlls or even a single executable?
I like writing quick 'one-off' applications with C#, however I don't want to have to install the whole framework on the target machine once it's ready to go.
You ask a loaded question. C# is merely a language and does not require the .NET Framework. The process of compiling it requires a compiler, which may or may not itself take a dependency on the .NET Framework (Microsoft's C# compiler does not -- it is written in native code). Your program will need to reference some assembly where types, classes, and methods can be found for your use. You can remove system.dll and mscorlib.dll from your references list and reference your own assemblies. So you can avoid dependencies on the .NET Framework if you really work at it. But in the end, unless you have a C# compiler that compiles programs to native code you still have a dependency on the CLR.
That's a very technical way of saying... almost nothing. But it answers your question. :) More practically useful however is how to get your C# programs to run with a minimum of dependencies. mkbundle from mono will actually let you compile it all into an .exe with virtually no dependencies.
But if you want to stick with the Microsoft .NET Framework, you can achieve a much lighter footprint and faster install of the dependencies you commonly need by using the Client profile of .NET 3.5 SP1. You can read about it here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc656912.aspx
Look at mkbundle using Mono.
It is now possible to compile C# to native code using Microsoft .NET Native:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn584397(v=vs.110).aspx
It automatically compiles the release version of apps that are written in managed code (C# or Visual Basic) and that target the .NET Framework and Windows 10 to native code.
...
For users of your apps, .NET Native offers these advantages:
•Fast execution times
•Consistently speedy startup times
•Low deployment and update costs
•Optimized app memory usage
This only works with Visual Studio .NET 2015.
Take a look at the .NET client profile.
This will allow you to package a minimum install on the client machine.. which will later be updated by windows update to the full framework.
This depends, of course, on your app only using libraries that are contained in the client profile ...
Some info here: http://blogs.windowsclient.net/trickster92/archive/2008/05/21/introducing-the-net-framework-client-profile.aspx
It's said it is possible, using 3rd-party tools such as http://www.remotesoft.com/linker/
Not possible. Your "compiled" C# application is a language which the .Net CLR interprets (should have said JITed, Reads the IL, compiles to native code, and then invokes the compiled native code) at runtime.
FYI .net 2.0 is a standard install on xp SP2 and vista, so you won't be paying that much of a penalty.
You could look into mono, but this still involves running some kind of framework on your target machine.
This dependency which unfortunately frequently breaks or is missing in the real world is a big reason why C# has not had a wider adoption. On the flip side most development does have dependencies.. look at C++ & Java for example.
I don't think we will really get away from these dependency issues anytime soon, so I recommend that if you want to use C#, that you make a wrapper for installation which checks for the .net framework version dependency you need, and if missing notify the user that they need this to run your app.
Some C# features are bound to interfaces of the .NET framework.
For example:
yield return requires the IEnumerable interface
using (x) {} requires the IDisposable interface