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How to communicate with .NET 3.5 SP1 bootstrapper

I'm building acustom Windows installer packagefor my .NET 3.5 SP1 WPF application. I want it to detect what version (if any) of the .NET framework is installed on the client's computer, and then automatically download it from Microsoft if they don't have it.

Now, I've read about the .NET bootstrapper and even seen it in action in a ClickOnce installer I made. It seems to do just what I need.

The problem is, I don't want to use ClickOnce. I'm partial to NSIS. So essentially I'm looking for some documentation on how to communicate with or integrate the bootstrapper in some way so I can leverage it inside my own installer. But I'm not finding much.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

Moved byYiChun ChenMSFTWednesday, March 11, 2009 3:45 AMDeployment issue (Moved from .NET Framework Setup to ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects)

SWortham Monday, March 09, 2009 10:34 PM

Hi Steve,

I am moving this thread from Base ".Net Framework Setup"forum to the "ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects" forum, since the issue is related to deployment. There are moredeployment experts in the "ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects" forum.

Thanks

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YiChun Chen Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:44 AM

Hi SWortham,

Do you mean you don't create MSI package using Visual Studio? Base on my understanding, if a computer has already installed previous version of .Net Framework such as 3.0 and your application need 3.5, you want to download only the upgrade package from 3.0 to 3.5.

This is a default action in Visual Studio. When you set .Net Framework 3.5 as prerequisite of your MSI package, it will check the .Net version that has already been installed then download the necessary part instead of the whole.

I don't know why you don't use Visual studio to build your package. If you want to custom your installation use other tool to build package, you can check the registry keys to get the version of .Net Framework already installed.
http://www.vcskicks.com/detect_net_framework.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/kb00318785.aspx

Sincerely,
Kira Qian

Please mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark if they don't.

Kira Qian Wednesday, March 11, 2009 8:22 AM

Thanks for the reply. I actually asked this on StackOverflow as well and someone posted their source code of an NSIS example...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/632587/how-to-communicate-with-net-3-5-sp1-bootstrapper

This worked out for me. NSIS is just sooo fast & lightweight. I just had to use it.

Steve Wortham Monday, July 13, 2009 7:40 PM