Percent of PCs with .NET framework installed?

Tipperton · Post by **Tipperton** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:55 pm

electrochrisso wrote:By the way I lost my MSDN 98 disks anyone know where I could get a copy of these.

Try http://www.emsps.com/oldtools

Or eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0150996843
(I found it by searching for "MSDN library" without the quotes)

Sebe · Post by **Sebe** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:19 pm

@topic: .Net is cool. It's surprisingly fast and stable and you can combine any .Net language to work with any other .Net language. I like VB.Net, I like C#. .Net actually is THE product I really thank Microsoft for (other one would be DirectX). With XNA it will become more important for game development in the near future. I'm already waiting for PureBasic.Net and hope it will be out of beta stage soon.

@linux: Linux is a nice hobby project but it's nothing compared to Windows regarding entertainment, hardware compatibility and streamlined development. It won't replace Windows. Before that happens, Apple will crush Microsoft with OSX (which will also never happen).

electrochrisso · Post by **electrochrisso** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:34 am

Thanks Tipperton, you pointed me in the right direction and the prices are quite reasonable too.

Hi Sebe, I am not having a go at the concept of dot net I am having a go at the Microsoft style of bringing a new product and then after a short while shaft the people who were first to put their money in and buy it and expect them to pay more for the next update that fixed the many bugs that should not have been there in the first place and put a few add ons to make it look like they have made vast improvements.
Considering the high price of pro versions of Microsoft's products, their should be some kind of law imposed that they must keep you updated for at least three years. About the only people who can afford Microsofts 'worthwhile' support options are large organizations who pay thousand upon thousands of dollars to keep the clunky old Microsoft style of upgrading products with a dozen patches each week.

Well anyway I am not going to buy any more Microsoft products, Pure Basic is the way to go, European software development tools are a heap better designed and supported in my opinion.

Sebe · Post by **Sebe** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:38 am

I'm using the Express versions. Don't cost a thing and are better than any hobby IDE.

Tipperton · Post by **Tipperton** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:05 am

electrochrisso wrote: Thanks Tipperton, you pointed me in the right direction and the prices are quite reasonable too.

You're welcome! Glad I could help!

Sebe wrote:I'm using the Express versions. Don't cost a thing and are better than any hobby IDE.

My favorite IDE that I use more often than all others is UEStudio, fantastic editor and totally configurable to accomodate any language and any number of langages.

The only time I use some other IDE is either because it has special support for the language (like Visual Basic's) or when I need information to configure UEStudio for the language as I did for PureBasic.

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:17 am

The company where I work has, over the past year or so, migrated primarily to .NET, and I have seen a lot of benefits to using it in our kind of team-based enterprise environment. I'm not so sure downloading a 25mb runtime is an attractive requirement for the average home user, but with .NET being integrated into Vista (and most new computers being sold with some flavor of Vista preinstalled) I suppose it won't be as much of a barrier.

It's been touched on here, but one of my favorite things about .NET is its accessibility from different languages without sacrificing integration. I started out learning it using VB.NET, then joined a team that was working in C#, and have now settled on a lovely little Python-inspired language called boo (boo.codehaus.org). It's really nice how the assemblies from these very disparate languages work so seamlessly together. I don't credit Microsoft for much, but I think they really have come up with a beautiful architecture in the .NET platform.

Also, in response to Sebe, have you checked out a "hobby" IDE called SharpDevelop? IMO, it's every bit as good as Visual Studio -- in fact, it's pretty near a 1:1 copy of it. My only complaint is that it doesn't feel quite as snappy as the "real thing", but it hardly makes a difference to me.

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:39 am

r_hyde wrote:I think they really have come up with a beautiful architecture in the .NET platform.

I completely agree! It's the best thing MS has ever come up with. The .NET runtime does put people off, but with the huge advantages .NET development, it soon becomes trivial. Plus, like you said it's shipped with all new OSs from MS now anyway.

I have used many third party assemblies for different projects and i have no idea what .NET language they were written in. They just integrate seemlessly with what i am doing and 'Just Work' as they should. Everything is so much easier in .NET development.

Tipperton · Post by **Tipperton** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:49 pm

r_hyde wrote:I think they really have come up with a beautiful architecture in the .NET platform.

Maybe so, but if you want to have reverse engineering protection and license management.... Good luck!

.NET does not lend itself at all well to these technologies. There are obfuscators available but as to how well they work, I don't know. And for license management, you either have to write your own or use an add-in component such as an ActiveX control or a DLL.

For as long as .NET has been available, there is still no wrapper protection like Armadillo or AsProtect that works with .NET.

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:43 pm

Tipperton wrote:
r_hyde wrote:I think they really have come up with a beautiful architecture in the .NET platform.
Maybe so, but if you want to have reverse engineering protection and license management.... Good luck!

I honestly didn't think this would be a great problem until i discovered 'Reflector'. (http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/)

This program opens a .NET assembly and give you all the source code properly formatted!!

Hopefully a good system for obscuring/securing this data is available soon.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:06 pm

XHEO pioneered copy protection and licensing for .NET in 2002 with the initial release of XHEO|Licensing

http://www.xheo.com

For as long as .NET has been available, there is still no wrapper protection like Armadillo or AsProtect that works with .NET.

They don't even work anyway :p

Hopefully a good system for obscuring/securing this data is available soon.

There are tons out there. Thinstall for example

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:05 pm

Tipperton wrote:r_hyde wrote:
I think they really have come up with a beautiful architecture in the .NET platform.

Maybe so, but if you want to have reverse engineering protection and license management.... Good luck!

Let's face it, nothing -- NOTHING -- is un-crackable no matter what you write it in. I am fortunate to write all my software these days in a corporate environment with an in-house user base, where software protection really isn't among our considerations. But it doesn't matter much -- if you're writing commercial software, and it's the least bit popular, it will simply be cracked. Period.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:22 pm

In fact i am more concerned of source code theifery than cracking/keygenning

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:37 pm

thefool wrote:In fact i am more concerned of source code theifery than cracking/keygenning

Me too.

When i said 'Hopefully a good system for obscuring/securing this data is available soon', i meant aimed at the indie developer and priced accordingly.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:51 pm

Kale wrote: i meant aimed at the indie developer and priced accordingly.

Yeah. I think there are a few ones, check programmerstools.org

Tipperton · Post by **Tipperton** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:13 pm

thefool wrote:
Hopefully a good system for obscuring/securing this data is available soon.
There are tons out there. Thinstall for example

Yeah, if you can afford the $1,200 minimum price tag...

MoleBox is similar and cheaper. It doesn't have all the "bells and whistles" Thinstall has and I don't know if it will work with .NET

r_hyde wrote:Let's face it, nothing -- NOTHING -- is un-crackable no matter what you write it in. <snip> Period.

True...