Installing .NET Framework 3.0 on Windows XP

About

.NET Framework is a programming environment for creating applications. It was first released in 2001. The latest version is .NET Framework 3.0 released in 2006. For Windows XP SP2 and above it is included, for older OS versions the framework must be downloaded and installed.

The .NET framework was created to make application development easier and to reduce security threads. The creators wanted to replace the old C++/MFC, C/Win32 development, which was dominant on the Windows platform. Today, there is a tough competition among development tools and components. Developers can choose among various competing options. Qt/C++, Java/Swing, wxWidgets/C++ just to name a few. Web applications like flickr.com also take a share.

Installation

We can download the framework from the official microsoft download site. The download file name is dotnetfx3setup.exe. The file size is 2.8 MB. During installation, the installer program connects to internet and downloads necessary files. This is it. Made me curious a bit.

Simple program

The C# language is the most important language of the .NET framework. We will create a simple program to test if it works.

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

class Simple {
    static void Main() {
        MessageBox.Show("A simple example");
 }

The program creates a simple message box.

To complile the source code, start the command line. Start/Run/cmd. And type the following. Note that the path to the csc.exe compiler might differ on your computer.

C:\>WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe simple.cs

Microsoft (R) Visual C# 2005 Compiler version 8.00.50727.42
for Microsoft (R) Windows (R) 2005 Framework version 2.0.50727
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2001-2005. All rights reserved

The compiler will create file simple.exe