OS Compatibility for various .NET Framework versions

Question

What are the minimum OS requirements for each of the .Net frameworks? E.g. for which version is it impossible to run each OS on:

• Windows 95
• Windows 98
• Windows 98SE
• Windows ME
• Windows NT 3.x
• Windows NT 4
• Windows 2000

I believe all .Net frameworks are compatible w/ XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 (please correct me on that if wrong).

Answer 1

Microsoft .NET framework is supported on Windows 98 and up starting at version 1.0, with the following exceptions:

Windows NT
Windows Server 2003 (Itanium-based)

As an added note, I've been able to run .NET IL Portable Executables on platforms up to version 2.0 fairly reliably through Mono on Linux based machines. Though it does run better if it is compiled in Mono. For odd some reason, PE's compiled with the Mono package are closer to the written standards of the .NET IL than when compiled with the Microsoft .NET compilers.

.NET 2.0 states on MSDN that it is compatible with Windows 98

.NET 3.0/3.5 requires XP or above:

Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows XP SP2
Windows Vista *

Answer 2

Listed here http://www.microsoft.com/net/Download.aspx

Answer 3

Update: Apparently I was wrong. As pointed by other people, MSDN states 2.0 and below work on Win 98 as well.

All .Net versions work on XP SP2 and above, although some classes also offer support for Vista specific features and fail gracefully on XP. I think 1.0 used to work on Windows 2000, but every other released .Net expects XP or higher.

Answer 4

.Net 1, 1.1 and 2.0 are supported on all from Windows 98 / Windows 2000 + NOT windows NT or windows 95.

.Net 3.0 / 3.5 is supported only on Windows XP/ Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 editions. Windows 98 and 2000 are no longer supported. See MSDN

Answer 5

1.x and 2.0 work all the way back to Win98

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2.0 Unsupported Operating Systems according to Microsoft

• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows NT® Server
• Windows NT Workstation
• Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems
• Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems

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.NET Framework 3.0 Support OSs

• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1)
• Windows XP SP2
• Windows Vista

Note: Windows Vista comes with .NET Framework 3.0. There is no separate installation package required. The standalone .NET Framework 3.0 packages are not supported on Vista.

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.NET Framework 3.5 Supported OSs

• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008