We're a development shop that still does most of our development in .net 2.0. We're starting to think about using some of the new things in 3.5 (LINQ, etc) and there are some other software packages we're looking at that need WPF and so on.
We'd like to get 3.5 up and running on our test server, but without wrecking any of the 2.0 sites we already have running (and we'd like them to keep running under 2.0). Are there any hidden issues I should know about, or can I just install 3.5 on our Server 2003 machine and be good to go?
(The specific concern being that despite Microsoft claiming the .net 2.0 components are the same in 3.5, that they actually changed something game-breaking.)
Update: Bolstered on by everyone's comments here and other reading, we decided to bite the bullet and install 3.5 on the server "just to see what happens."
On running the install program, we discovered (to our not inconsiderable surprise) that .net 3.5 had been installed back in August – and none of us had known about it.
Which, really, is about as seamless an upgrade as you can ask for.
Thanks, everybody!
Best Answer
3.5 is an extension if 2.0. There is no 3.5 without 2.0. Its actually a different dll (Core.dll). This isn't like the move from 1.1 to 2.0; if your older sites don't reference the new dll, then those sites do not get altered whatsoever.