Supporting both Win2K/.NET 1.0 and Win2003/.NET 1.1

[Zoe Hart]

Can anyone point me to documentation and/or white papers that address issues
relative to developing and supporting web applications for both the
Win2K/.NET Framework 1.0 platform and the Win2003/.NET Framework 1.1
platform? Specifically, I have developed and am supporting three Microsoft
Commerce Server ASP.NET web applications on Win2K with .NET Framework 1.0.
The solutions include ASP.NET code as well as some custom .NET DLLs. My next
project will be a Commerce Server ASP.NET web application on Win2003 with
..NET Framework 1.1. I'm trying to understand the implications of upgrading
my development workstation and test server to Win2003, VS.NET 2003 and .NET
Framework 1.1. With that environment, will I still be able to support the
older solutions? If I compile a .NET DLL on my upgraded platform, will it be
deployable on the older platform? Or can I compile it in such a way that it
is deployable on the older platform?

Thanks for any pointers.

Zoe

 

[Michael Ballou]

Hi Zoe,
The .Net framework 1.1 runs on Win2K, so my recommendation would be to build
everything with VS.Net 2003 (which uses .Net 1.1), and require the target
computers to have framework 1.1. Then you don't have to support 1.0 on any
platform.

VS.Net 2002 builds against the 1.0 framework and VS.Net 2003 builds against
the 1.1 framework. So by default the apps you build will require the
corresponding framework. You can use .config files to change that behavior,
but then you have extra testing involved, so I think it is easier to just
use VS.Net 2003 and 1.1 framework for everything.

Thanks,
Mike Ballou

 

[Ed Kaim [MSFT]]

Here is a good place to start:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnhcvs03/html/vs03f6.asp.

 

[Zoe Hart]

Thank you to both Michael and Ed for your responses. Both have been quite
helpful. I have a general follow up question. Does the Framework more or
less take the operating system out of the picture in terms of impact on my
compiled code. In other words if my target platform is Windows 2000, .NET
Framework 1.0, can I develop that application equally reliably with Visual
Studio.NET 2002 on either Windows 2000 or Windows 2003. Or stated another
way, can I configure my development environment with VS.NET2002/.NET
Framework1.0 side by side with VS.NET2003/.NET Framework1.1 and then use
VS.NET2002 to develop applications targeted at Win2K/.NET Framework 1.0 and
use VS.NET2003 to develop applications targeted at Win2003/.NET Framework
1.1, and if I do that, does it matter whether VS.NET and the Framework are
running on Win2K or Win2003 in my development environment?

Thanks again,
Zoe