[wix-devs] v4 - which .NET Framework?

[Sean Hall]

Let me see if I understand.  Our low bar is VS2010 which corresponds to
.NET 4.0.  Since we want to avoid upgrading someone's .NET, that means that
our compile target is .NET 4.0.  Even though VS2010 works on XP, we're not
supporting XP (note: we're not blocking it today) and only supporting Vista
SP2+ (because it's still supported by Microsoft today?).  Since 4.5.2 is
currently supported on all of our supported OS's, that's what we'll set as
the Prereq package in our bundle (note: this package will only work on
Vista/7, missing .NET 4 on 8+ means that a Windows feature needs to be
installed).  We'll modify the InstallCondition to only install if the
prereq BA is running.  We're going to switch to the full redist package
because the web redist for 4.5.2 is actually less efficient that the full
redist when it needs to be installed (note: to counteract this, we need to
make the package always uncompressed otherwise our bundle is going to be
huge).

Question for the future: what happens if we ship v4.0 after Vista and/or
4.5.2 loses support?

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Bob Arnson <bob at firegiant.com> wrote:

> 4.6 is still supported:
> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2015/12/09/support-ending-for-the-net-framework-4-4-5-and-4-5-1/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wix-devs [mailto:wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org] On Behalf
> Of Rob Mensching
> Sent: Tuesday, 2 August, 2016 13:08
> To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> Subject: Re: [wix-devs] v4 - which .NET Framework?
>
> We could install many different versions of .NET Framework in the Bundle
> but I was trying to keep it simpler than that. We don't support installing
> WiX Toolset on XP. So Vista is the lowest bar. My understanding is v4.6.0
> isn't supported. So if v4.6.1 doesn't support Vista I think the simple
> answer is v4.5.2 everywhere. I'd only really want to do the more
> complicated scenario below if there isn't a single .NET Framework that
> supports all our target OS's (aka: Vista+).
>
> As for not up to date machines, we should either solve the problem or
> ensure there is a good error message in mbapreq. This is the same
> experience everyone else uses so it might as well be good.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wix-devs [mailto:wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org] On Behalf
> Of Sean Hall
> Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2016 8:42 AM
> To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> Subject: Re: [wix-devs] v4 - which .NET Framework?
>
> If we're going to target a lower version of .NET than the one that the
> bundle includes, then there's no reason for us to pick only one version of
> .NET for the bundle.  We can set it up such that it installs .NET 4.0 on XP
> SP3, .NET 4.6 on Vista SP2, and .NET 4.6.1 on Win 7 SP1 and later.
>
> The question then becomes, what happens when there is no 4.x version of
> .NET installed on the machine and the version of .NET we have in the bundle
> can't be installed on the current OS.  For instance, 4.6.1 cannot be
> installed on completely unpatched versions of Windows (I don't remember off
> the top of my head which ones), it requires one (or more) Windows Updates
> and/or service packs.  Do we just pop up a message saying that they need to
> update their OS?  Do we ask them to enable the .NET feature in Windows, or
> add functionality to burn to do it ourselves?
>
> Also, Phill mentioned switching to a Redist version.  I'm not sure where
> that came from, or why we would want to do that.  If that's because of
> layout, then I think there's a feature that could be written for Burn where
> it can support using a Web version for install and a Redist version for
> layout.
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