(newbie) standalone app design criteria?

This post was triggered by a post of Wendy Elizabeth a few days ago, which
got me thinking.



I still consider myself a newbie (hobby programmer, basic stuff only) so
this is really a conceptual question. I'm posting in this group because I
only have experience with VB (some simple 2003/2005 winforms apps, some 2003
CF, and a whole lot of VBA).



At work I'm in a locked-down IT environment (WinXP; can't change the
registry, which prevents many 3rd-party apps from installing). However, I've
found a few apps that I can use them without problems just by running the
..exe (some countdown timers, hex editor, etc.). I recognize that these are
fully compiled apps, and likely not built on .Net.



This also brings to mind some of the USB articles I recall seeing maybe a
year or so ago with 'software on a stick' where the software could be run on
any PC that doesn't lock out the USB ports, and save settings back to the
USB stick for future sessions (personal browser, etc). Truly portable
software, not the sticks that also have a bootable OS installed on
them.Again, I recognize these are probably not built on .Net



So if I want to develop (with my current tools) any simple winforms programs
to use at work, they'd have to be usable without touching the registry. In
the past with my VS/VB apps I haven't had to worry about the registry (on my
home PC) so I've never learned what the built-in installers were actually
doing, I just let them do their magic. What I don't know is whether it is
possible (with some assumptions about the .Net framework being installed) to
do something similar in VB.Net



I still have VS2003 and VB2005Express, and plan to upgrade to VS2008 before
mid-year. Knowing that VS programs are dependent on the .Net framework, what
(if any) approach would be optimal to try to create applications that don't
require "installation" in the traditional sense (registry changes, etc.)? I
can base any code on the 2.0 framework for maximum compatibility, but are
there any reference documents that describe whether "standalone" (e.g. no
registry interaction) apps can be created in VS, and recommended approaches
so I can determine if it is worth the time to learn how to do this?



Worst case scenario is I can buy VB6 on Ebay, but I don't have any urgent
functionality I'm trying to program- I'm just interested in knowing if I can
do it with my current tools, in case a need arises.



Many thanks,

Keith


.

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