Change .NET Framework Target of Compiled Executable

Question

As Windows 8 doesn't contain .NET 2/3.5 by default, I would like to convert some .NET 2.0 compiled executables to .NET 4.5 without re-compiling them with VS 2012. Is there an utility for this task?

Answer 1

You could just create or modify the app.config file, and set the supportedRuntime element to 4.5. This will cause the 4.0 CLR (which will use the 4.5 framework) to load the assembly, and does not require any change to the executable itself.