I'm creating a Deployment Project in Visual Studio 2008 for a C# program.     I have no way of knowing whether the people who download my program will have a recent (or any!) version of the .NET framework installed on their PC.      How do I use the Setup Wizard or Setup Project to include a check for .NET Framework, and if its needed, to install the latest version?      I want to make this easy for the user, and most of them will not have any geek skills like going to the Microsoft website and downloading the framework on their own.

Thanks in advance.

From the MSDN:

To include the .NET Framework 3.0 with a setup project

Sonu:

From the MSDN:

To include the .NET Framework 3.0 with a setup project  . . .

 . . .

1. Select the Create setup program to install prerequisite components check box.

2. In the list, locate .NET Framework 3.0 and then select the version appropriate for the target platforms.

3. Specify the source location for the prerequisites.

   For the location of the .NET Framework 3.0, you can specify either the Windows Vista Download site or a site of your own. The URL can also specify a CD on which your own application is being distributed.

4. Click OK.

Do I need to know, or be aware of, what the target environment is?    My users will all be running XP or Vista, but I can't predict what version or service pack they might have.    My development environment is Visual Studio 2008, so can I just use .Net Framework 3.5?

The instructions for installing .Net Framework 3.5 say that the user must have the latest service packs, and must remove earler pre-release version of 3.5.   Again, I have no way of knowing what the user might already have on their PC, and these users are probably not very technical so it's not reasonable to expect them to know, or to add or remove anything on their own.

Thanks for further clarification.