Issue Summary

One of the new features in AppLife Update 2.0 is support for the .Net 3.5 Client Profile Framework.   This feature allows AppLife Update to be compatible with customer applications that target the 3.5 Client Profile Framework. The implementation of this feature has caused an issue that breaks update functionality on client systems running the .Net Framework 2.0 SP2 and .Net Framework 3.0 SP2.

Details

AppLife Update depends only on the .Net Framework 2.0 (no service pack).   The functionality of .Net Framework 3.0 and 3.5 are additive to the .Net Framework 2.0.  Since all of the .Net assemblies that AppLife Update uses for updating are included in the assemblies that are part of the .Net 3.5 Client Profile, extending AppLife Update to support the Client Profile requires us to declare this profile as a target within executable configuration files.

<configuration>

   <startup>

      <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727" sku="client"/>

   </startup>

</configuration>

 

Using this declaration causes updating behavior to be inconsistent between .Net Framework versions and service pack levels.  On .Net Framework 2.0 pre SP2, .Net Framework 3.0 pre SP2, and .Net Framework 3.5 clients, AppLife Update performs without issues.  However, on the .Net Framework 2.0 SP2 and .Net Framework 3.0 SP2, any attempt to update using AppLife Update 2.0 will result in a warning dialog stating that the application is dependent on the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1.  Microsoft states that this warning dialog is the expected behavior.