dotNET applications?

Submit portable freeware that you find here. It helps if you include information like description, extraction instruction, Unicode support, whether it writes to the registry, and so on.
Post Reply
Message
Author
technicolordreamcoat
Posts: 116
Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 5:08 pm

dotNET applications?

#1 Post by technicolordreamcoat »

[Moderator note: user deleted his initial post discussing a Microsoft dotNET application]
Last edited by technicolordreamcoat on Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Darkbee
Posts: 291
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:35 am
Contact:

#2 Post by Darkbee »

I don't think .net applications are accepted into the database.

Erind
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:11 pm

#3 Post by Erind »

.NET is basically a programming structure for applications. That means if you write a .NET dependant application, while most people WILL have it, not everybody will. .NET is required to be installed before those applications will run. No .NET, no application. It's actually the same reason that java applications are not allowed.

Darkbee
Posts: 291
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:35 am
Contact:

#4 Post by Darkbee »

.net is a huge (comparatively speaking) development platform much like Java (as has been mentioned) and it is not a requirement of a Windows installation that it be present, even for XP. Therefore, you can't assume that every computer you use (like public computers for example) will have the .net platform.

Of course, if you only use your portable apps between two computers, say home and work, and you know that they both have .net installed then there is nothing to stop you from using .net applications but they won't be permitted entry into the PF database for the reason above.

Some Visual Basic programs have been allowed into the database (even though it too is a development platform) for two reasons:
1) The Visual Basic runtimes are much smaller totallying only a few megabytes (which is small by today's terabyte standards)
2) The runtimes can often be placed in the same directory as the application itself so that they need not be 'installed' on the host computer.

For development platforms that run in the 100+ megabytes, obviously this is not pratical to duplicate for every single application you want to run. Naturally, a solution would be to have a "portable" version of the chosen development platform, in one central location on a portable device, then point all reliant applications to that central location but I'm not sure of the feasibility of such an idea.

[edit] To answer the question of how do you determine if an application requires the .net platform there are at least two possible answers:
1) The author's website will list it under the requirements section (which is very common for .net)
2) You can run the program and observe that the application complains that it cannot find a certain runtime or is missing required files (of course this doesn't pinpoint the exact nature of the problem but it is a clue)
[/edit]

User avatar
Andrew Lee
Posts: 3052
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 9:19 am
Contact:

#5 Post by Andrew Lee »

Darkbee, thanks for clarifying. Our thoughts are very similar on this topic.

I was only recently persuaded to add VB apps to the database for reasons that Darkbee has listed. I personally still don't like VB apps and try to avoid them. Besides MSVBVM60.DLL, they frequently require additional OCXs such as COMCTL32.OCX, MSWINSCK.OCX, MSINET.OCX etc, though these can be placed in the same folder as the EXE as well.

But even for Win32 apps, they sometimes require some additional DLLs eg. GDIPLUS.DLL before they will run. Some of these DLLs (MSVCR70.DLL, MSVCR71.DLL, MFC71.DLL etc.) come with newer versions of Visual Studio, so some developers have started using them.

The term "portability" can sometimes be surprisingly tricky when you start to draw a line. :D

Post Reply