I am trying toget an 'official' position on what to do when deploying an application that requires XP SP2 (or for that matter any service pack)to be installed on the target andit has not. I have developed an application along with an installation app that includes thenecessary components for my app to run (e.g. .Net Framework 2.0).Should I include the redistributable for SP2 if I detect the target machine does not have it installed and promopt the user to install it from my installtion apportell the user it is not installed, terminate the install, and have them do it.Is there another solution?

Yes, that is our method. The user has to take responsibility for that. It's bad enough that we have to deploy the .Net Framework (one of our customers called up and asked why we were making him install a "major Windows component"). (Note: MSFT doesn't deploy the .Net Framework automatically because of the Justice Dept anti-trust ruling. In case everyone wondered. At least, that's my opinion from the reading I've done.)

You can't possibly deploy every single possible service pack under the sun. There's XP SP2, XP SP3, Vista SP1, and Vista SP2 (also known as Windows 7, haha), to say nothing of the hundreds of security patches to IE. At some point, the user has to be responsible for their own machine.

So we state in our requirements what versions we support, and if we get support calls around the installation issues, we check and see if they are running automatic updates. In our experience, almost everybody has them turned on, I think we've only found one case where they didn't. So you're not likely to alienate anybody.

RobinS.
GoldMail.com

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Ts'i mahnu uterna ot twan ot geifur hingts uto.

It's normal for setups to have conditions on things like service packs. I do not believe that a service pack is a redistributable unless you have a special agreement with Microsoft, so you can't ship it as a CD or on a CD. The user has to install it.
Although it's not a very common scenario, service packs can be uninstalled. If your app can potentially crash if XPSP2 is not the current OS version it could be worth checking whenever youstart the app, if that's possible.

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Phil Wilson

You could put it in the system requirements that the user must be running Windows Update, and keep his machine up-to-date, or that for Windows XP, SP-2 is required.

When we have ClickOnce installation problems, that's one of the first things we ask people, because it can really mess you up.

If you can get a redistributable just for the service pack, you can always include it as a prerequisite, but I would test that on Vista to see what it does to make sure it doesn't mess up.

RobinS.
GoldMail.com

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Ts'i mahnu uterna ot twan ot geifur hingts uto.

Thanks for the response. We are looking for a guideline for the installation of our applications in how to handle services packs in a Windows environment. I really dont want to have anything to do with including service packs in an installation package (other than saying the user is responsible for keeping their systems up to date)and was looking to the community to see what others' standard practices were. It sounds to me from your response that leaving it up to the user is your preferred method(?).

Yes, that is our method. The user has to take responsibility for that. It's bad enough that we have to deploy the .Net Framework (one of our customers called up and asked why we were making him install a "major Windows component"). (Note: MSFT doesn't deploy the .Net Framework automatically because of the Justice Dept anti-trust ruling. In case everyone wondered. At least, that's my opinion from the reading I've done.)

You can't possibly deploy every single possible service pack under the sun. There's XP SP2, XP SP3, Vista SP1, and Vista SP2 (also known as Windows 7, haha), to say nothing of the hundreds of security patches to IE. At some point, the user has to be responsible for their own machine.

So we state in our requirements what versions we support, and if we get support calls around the installation issues, we check and see if they are running automatic updates. In our experience, almost everybody has them turned on, I think we've only found one case where they didn't. So you're not likely to alienate anybody.

RobinS.
GoldMail.com

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Ts'i mahnu uterna ot twan ot geifur hingts uto.

It's normal for setups to have conditions on things like service packs. I do not believe that a service pack is a redistributable unless you have a special agreement with Microsoft, so you can't ship it as a CD or on a CD. The user has to install it.
Although it's not a very common scenario, service packs can be uninstalled. If your app can potentially crash if XPSP2 is not the current OS version it could be worth checking whenever youstart the app, if that's possible.

---

Phil Wilson