Is .NET 3.5 a reasonable pre-requisite for a media center plugin?

Question

We have an open source media center plug-in. At the moment its download size is one measly megabyte.

If I change my plug-in to require .NET 3.5, users may have to download 197 megs just to be able to use my plug-in.

I am in the middle of a big refactoring process, and am aching to use some of the functional aspects of LINQ, which would considerably reduce the complexity of our codebase.

Is .NET 3.5 a reasonable pre-requisite for my application? My entire user base already have .NET 3.0 installed.

Answer 1

For a smaller installer, .Net 3.5 Sp1 has a new feature called "Client Profile".

The .NET Framework Client Profile setup contains just those assemblies and files in the .NET Framework that are typically used for client application scenarios. For example: it includes Windows Forms, WPF, and WCF. It does not include ASP.NET and those libraries and components used primarily for server scenarios. We expect this setup package to be about 26MB in size, and it can be downloaded and installed much quicker than the full .NET Framework setup package.

Answer 2

I think it's acceptable for an open source project. Windows 7, the next version of Windows, will come with .NET 3.5. And: the probability that the XP and Vista users will already have installed 3.5 for other programs increases from month to month.

P.S.: I'm using your Media Center plugin. I am sure I'll do that 3.5 setup.

Answer 3

I don't know why doesn't Microsoft push hard to make .Net framework 3.5 be installed on as many machines as possible through its Windows Update or service pack.

But if you don't want your Vista users to download 3.5, you can target 2.0 framework on VS2008, 2.0 is built-in in Vista. Regarding LINQ, just find an alternative implementation, try LinqBridge. Everything else (inferred variables, automatic getter setter, collection initializers, property initializers, lambda are just compiler magics, not dependent on 3.5

Answer 4

Remember, not all of your users will need to actually deplot the .net framework. For example, Windows 7 users will already have that on thier machine.