VS2008 Setup Project always requires .NET 3.5 at install time but I don't need it!

Question

1, Create and build a default Windows Forms project and look at the project properties. It says that the project is targetting .NET Framework 2.0.

2, Create a Setup project that installs just the single executable from the Windows Forms project.

3, Run that installer and it always says that it needs to install .NET 3.5 SP1 on the machine. But it obviously only really needs 2.0 and so I do not want customers to be forced to install .NET 3.5 when they do not need it. They might already have 2.0 installed and so forcing the upgrade is not desirable!

I have looked at the prerequisites of the setup project and checked the .NET Framework 2.0 entry and all the rest are unchecked. So I cannot find any reason for this strange runtime requirement. Anybody know how to resolve this one?

Answer 1

No need to edit the file manually. The hint is just above the GUID there:"LaunchCondition".

1. Right click the setup project
2. Select "View" -> "Launch Conditions"
3. Expand the "Launch Conditions" node if it isn't already expanded
4. Right click the ".NET Framework" node and select "Properties Window"
5. In the "Properties" window change the "Version" value to the appropriate value, in your case 2.0.50727.

I'm not sure why this isn't set appropriately from the start.