. Net Installation

 

This article describes the installation process for the release version of the. NET Framework. Although the beta instructions as given inCodenotes for VB. NETAndCodenotes for. netAre essential identical, they are repeated here for clarification.

There are two installation aspects of. net.

1. The. net Framework, which consists of the common language runtime, the base class libraries, and command-line programs such as ildasm. this portion of the framework can be installed as part of the Windows component Update (which will be explained momentarily ). this aspect. net is required for a machine to run. NET applications.
2. Visual Studio. net, Microsoft's new development tool for. net Framework. although you can develop. NET application without. net (using the command-line compilers that ship with the above framework), you will probably want to use the IDE as it handles des features such as syntax coloring and powerful debugging capabilities such as breakpoints, variable inspection and code stepping that you enjoyed in previous versions of Visual Studio and Visual Basic.

OS requirements

Even though both. net Framework and. net are designed to work on all modern Microsoft Operating Systems (with the exception of Windows 95), if you intend on developing ASP. NET applications or web services you will need Windows 2000 or Windows XP (or the yet-to-be-released. NET Server OS ).

This constraint exists because ASP. net will work only with Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0 or later. although early beta documentation claimed that ASP. net wocould work with IIS 4.0 (found on Windows NT 4.0), support for NT was eventually dropped in Beta 2 of the product. in addition, Asp. net will not function with personal Web server, which is supported with Windows 98 and Windows Millennium.

Installation requirements

In order to install the. NET Framework on your machine, Microsoft recommends the following System Configuration:

• Processor: Minimum Pentium 133 MHz
• Operating System: Windows 2000 (professional, server or advance server), Windows XP Professional.
• Memory: 128 MB (256 MB recommended)
• Hard drive: 500 mb free on the drive where the OS is installed (usually C:/), and approximately 2.5 Gigs free on the installation drive (where vs. net will be installed)

Both. net and. net Framework are distributed on four CDs (Alternatively, they can be downloaded from the msdn as one 1.6-gigabyte installation file ). the first three CDs contain the. NET development tools, and the fourth contains the Windows component update. for information on obtaining the CDs either by mail or by download, please see www.microsoft.com/net /.

Installing the. NET Framework

To install the. NET Framework run Setup. EXE found on the first CD. After a couple of minutes, you will be greeted with the screen in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1: vs. Net setup Figure 1.1: vs. Net setup

As Figure 1.1 indicates, you must run the Windows component update before installing. net. after you click Windows component update, the setup program will analyze your machine for a few minutes to determine which system files need to be updated. depending upon the operating system and the applications that you have already installed, the setup program may have to reboot the system several times during the installation process. because of this requirement, the installer offers the Automatic Log On feature depicted in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2: Automatic Log On Figure 1.2: Automatic Log On

By supplying your password on the screen depicted in Figure 1.2, the system can automatically log in and continue the installation process every time it has to reboot the machine. because the setup program may have to reboot the machine running times during the installation routine, this option can be a real time saver.

After either enabling or disabling automatic IC log on, the setup program will begin the Windows component update. depending upon the files it must update, this procedure cocould take several minutes. during this time the setup program will detail its progress, as your strated in Figure 1.3. note that in addition to installing. net Framework, the setup program also instils varous software components required. net, such as the latest OS service packs and FrontPage Server Extensions.

Figure 1.3: Windows component update in progress SS Figure 1.3: Windows component update in progress SS

After the Windows component update has completed, the installation program will proceed to the Vs. Net install. Remember, you need only install vs. NetDevelop. NET applications. If you are using ing a computerRun. Net Applications, you can stop at this point. if you continue, the installation program will ask you to choose which portions of. net you want installed (language tools, msdn documentation etc ). the. net Options screen in shown in Figure 1.4.

Figure 1.4: vs. net installation Screen Figure 1.4: vs. net installation Screen

After selecting those aspects of. net that you wish to install, click "Install now" (we recommend that you accept the default install options .) note that if the setup program detects that your system does not contain IIS 5.0 or greater, it will not allow you to select ASP. net from the option menu.

Depending on the options you have selected, installation cocould take anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes. after the installation has completed, your computer will contain all of the tools necessary to build and deploy. NET applications.

Program locations

The. net setup program will append two new items to your Start Menu's Program folder. the first item is called Microsoft. net Framework SDK, and contains msdn documentation and code samples. the second item is called Microsoft Visual Studio. net 7.0, and contains links to the.. Net IDE and to another folder called Visual Studio. net tools. in this book we will occasionally use utilities from the. net command line, which you can access by clicking the Visual Studio. net command prompt icon shown in Figure 1.5.

Figure 1.5: The Visual Studio. NET Command Prompt Figure 1.5: The Visual Studio. NET Command Prompt

Percent of these utilities are found in the/% Program Files %/Microsoft. net/frameworksdk/bin directory. if you use the. net command prompt in Figure 1.5 this directory will be automatically written in your path variable, so that you can access. net Framework utilities from within any directory.