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Chronology

  • Our product was targeted to .NET2.0, now it has changed to .NET4.0,
  • Customer is unhappy and wants us to install .NET4.0 along with our app (yes, it is kind of strange),
  • Installation is OK (wix bundles), but we have an upgrade process for customers in place:
    • It checks whether customer wasn't upgraded to newer software version meanwhile,
    • If it was, then self extracting binary is downloaded & extracted, iteffectively replaces the old binaries.

Solution

  • During extraction process I have a possibility to run .NET2.0 targeted exe coming from within the self extracting binary,
  • I decided to embed the .NET4.0 web installer (due to its small size) directly into this .NET2.0 targeted exe and to run it once I find out .NET4.0 is not installed (based on registry).

People above me unfortunately have concerns about "what if .NET4.0 web installer will stop working?". They are worried that the URL which this installer is internally using to download the full installer may change and web installer will become useless in such case. Are their concerns legit? Is anybody aware of similar situation happening in the past?

EDIT: Faulty internet connection is not of concern here, that is something I can live with, the question stands whether i can expect .NET web installer to keep working for decent amount of time (I will embed the web installer today, but what if customer upgrades to newer version of our software after 1 year, will web installer still be valid?).

Michal Hosala
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  • Is space a factor here? there is an [offline redistributable 4.0 installer](http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=17718) - could you just ship that? Re the web installer not working: yes, I can fully guarantee that this will not work if the machine does not have an internet connection at the time. This can happen. – Marc Gravell Oct 14 '14 at 15:58
  • @Marc Gravell yes, the space is of concern here. There is an ongoing effort to minimize the size of the self extracting exe being downloaded so I definitelly won't be allowed to raise its size by ~48MB (size of standlone installer). As for the internet connection, that is OK, I was allowed to display a message to the customer that stable Internet connection is required for automatic .NET upgrade to work - if it fails due to Internet, i-ll just display a warning message, but what should happen next is still just a topic for a discussion. – Michal Hosala Oct 14 '14 at 16:03
  • No, you can't get such a warranty. There was precedent, I don't think anybody would have guessed that .NET 3.5 was going to be tricky to install on Windows 8. The demand is pretty unreasonable, especially since .NET 4.x programs know how to get the framework installed by themselves. The odds that you'll hear about them being unhappy 5 years from now are low enough to not bother. – Hans Passant Oct 14 '14 at 17:03
  • @Hans Passant "since .NET 4.x programs know how to get the framework installed by themselves" --> could you please point me to some reference material where I can learn more about this feature? I wasn't aware of that at all.. Our customers typically run win7. – Michal Hosala Oct 14 '14 at 18:29
  • They are worried that the URL which this installer is internally using to download the full installer may change and web installer will become useless in such case. Are their concerns legit? What you could do is have your own webservice that pulls that URL from installer package, that way you have full control...regardless of MSFT changes. – JWP Oct 14 '14 at 18:32
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    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10032233/why-does-my-net-4-application-know-net-4-is-not-installed/10033128#10033128 – Hans Passant Oct 14 '14 at 19:48
  • @Hans Passant if you will provide an answer by summing up the above discussion I would definitely accept. The story about win8 + .NET3.5 is enough of an example to prove that web installer is not guaranteed to work forever, the rest of discussion about binaries being able to get the appropriate .NET framework by themselves is valid as well and indeed it seems like customer's request is even less appropriate than I thought. – Michal Hosala Oct 15 '14 at 14:47
  • I cannot write an answer that makes everybody happy. Don't want to maintain such an answer either, for obvious reasons :) – Hans Passant Oct 15 '14 at 14:51

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