Does the Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2008 really require .NET Framework version 3.5?

Question

I'm packaging up a .NET 2.0 based web app for deployment through a Windows Installer based package. Our app uses Report Viewer 2008 and I'm including the Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2008 installer. When I check the download page for Report Viewer 2008, it lists .NET 3.5 as a requirement.

Is having .Net 3.5 installed really needed Report Viewer 2008? We targeted .Net 2.0 for our app, there isn't anything in our code that would use the 3.0 or 3.5 Frameworks.

We are in the middle of testing and everything seems to be working with out 3.5, but I don't want to miss an edge condition and cause an error for a customer because he was missing a prerequisite run time package.

Answer 1

Keep in mind that MSFT might be requiring the 3.5 Framework so they can write against it in future updates/releases, which might place your app in an unsupported (by MSFT) state.

Answer 2

So far testing with or with out the .NET Framework works as expected. My installer has the user install version 2.0 of the Framework and everything works as expected.

My concern is that 3.5 is listed as a prerequisite on the Report Viewer download page.

Answer 3

If it works without a hitch then you don't need .NET 3.5 Framework for now. Installing .NET 3.5 Framework is easy enough to do along with later versions of your software if and only if your software stops working at that point.

Answer 4

Uising Reflector you can see that Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll has a dependency on "Microsoft.Build.Framework, Version=3.5.0.0" and "Microsoft.Build.Utilities.v3.5, Version=3.5.0.0". So strictly speaking it does have a 3.5 requirement. But if the reporting functionality you use never executes the code that uses/loads these, then you might just be OK :-)

Answer 5

We have deployed ReportViewer 2008 with only .net v2, no problems so far.