This is not Windows. This is not COM. To program in .NET is a whole new ballgame folks. Throw out everything you knew in MFC, COM, etc. If you want to program in .NET, you must learn and understand how .NET works. That means understanding the basics of the Common Language Runtime, Garbage Collection, Finalization, the Dispose Pattern, the BCL and what Managed code is. You can't wing it anymore. To ask if you have to install the runtime where you run is like asking "Do I have to plug in the computer to make it run?" Managed code is managed. Managed by what? Managed by the CLR! You need one to run .NET code, ok? A runtime means just that. A runtime is needed at runtime to for programs to function.
The runtime is already offered as a Recommended Download on Windows Update, and it will be included in XP Service Pack 1.
BTW - That runtime would have been smaller if they didnt include DLL's to support legacy VB6 functionality.
EDIT: Added the quote for the benefit of those people too lazy to click on links.
[1]http://radio.weblogs.com/0105852/stories/2002/04/21/itsTheRuntimeStupid.html
"It is precisely because it is fashionable for Americans to know no science, even though they may be well educated otherwise, that they so easily fall prey to nonsense. They thus become part of the armies of the night, the purveyors of nitwittery, the retailers of intellectual junk food, the feeders on mental cardboard, for their ignorance keeps them from distinguishing nectar from sewage."
Isaac Asimov
[edited by - Arild Fines on August 13, 2002 8:10:52 PM]
