One of the real pains with deploying a .NET 3.5 application on Windows XP (OS of choice for business) is the fact that you need to install .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET3.5 frameworks. The first two are plus 100MB, and the last is around the 60MB mark (last time I checked). Windows Vista comes with .NET 3.0 pre-installed.

This does cause headaches for IT professionals trying to deploy a new application, or if you write a managed application distributed on the Internet, users need to download and install all the aforementioned versions before the application works. This is cumbersome, awful first impression and bad user experience when starting to use a new application.

With the forthcoming Visual Studio 2008 and .NET framework 3.5 service pack around the corner, a new feature called ‘client profile’ has been created. This, in a nutshell, removes all the extraneous libraries a client application does not use, like ASP.NET for example, and retains the most common client application libraries for both Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation. A step by step tutorial is available here.

The total file size will be around 27 MB, which is tiny, and will please all the IT departments no end, that have to deploy managed applications either locally or distributed. Even if you have just a .NET 2.0 application, that is around 120MB in size, so you immediately shave off 100MB in the install. I must reiterate, that this affects both Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation, and you can ease deployment for both presentation layers. You will reduce the install imprint of you application by at least 400MB and save at least 30 minutes at the start, while the client machine installs .NET 2.0 then .NET 3.0 and finally .NET 3.5 (with the restarts in the middle).