.NET framework roll-out

A variation on the tired theme of .NET installation:

My customer (a large company) is struggling to do a remote install of .NET on all its PCs. Obviously it needs to achieve this before it can install my .NET application.

I believe the problem is mainly due to the size of the framework (21Mb). There is also an issue with some of their PCs being Win95 but nobody can help them with that!

It is being suggested that my application may not need all the featues that .NET provides and so they should be able to install a sub-set of the .NET framework. Frankly this sounds like a load of bollards (as we say in England) to me.

I understand that there is a Compact version of the .NET Framework for use on Windows CE so maybe they are thinking of that. Also the Standard Framework (which they need) is a lot smaller than the .NET SDK so maybe they are confusing those.

Can anyone give me a definitive answer to take back as to whether it is possible for them to deploy a smaller version of .NET Framework and still install my application? Alternatively, any suggestions as to how other companies have rolled out .NET?

you need to install the redistributable on each machine. The CE version wont work unless you wrote your app to target it as its pretty stripped down (hence its smaller) and loses functionality.

They should be able to use group policy or the free SUS server from microsoft to accomplish what they are talking about easily enough

Full .Net framework on all PC's that will be running your application. No exceptions.....unless you start talking about Mono. But that would be more trouble than it is worth. Since I mentioned it, I might as well give you a link to check it out. It is a open-source version of the .net framework. It isn't complete yet though. www.go-mono.com