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I recently joined a programming club at my highschool, and wanted to be able to use usb to run Visual Studio 2012 c# Express Edition from their laptops. I don't want to change any of the actual computer files because it is against the rules. After searching on google, it seems like this task is rather difficult to accomplish. So, I decided to look at some other IDEs and found SharpDevelop. Does anybody know if SharpDevelop can be run from a usb on a computer that does not have .NET?

Thanks.

user1594328
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    These days USB drives are pretty big. You could carry around an entire virtual machine...(maybe a bit like using a chainsaw to cut a 2x4 though) – lc. Aug 31 '12 at 01:16
  • If its a program run by the school they should loosen it up, otherwise theres no point, VM may be the only way if they even allow that – Daniel Powell Aug 31 '12 at 01:21
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    "I don't want to change any of the actual computer files because it is against the rules." Then the rules are wrong. Talk to the person in charge of managing the computers. If the laptops belong to the school and are lent to the students, they are probably re-ghosted each year to avoid viruses. – Steve Wellens Aug 31 '12 at 01:22
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    It's not possible to do any .NET development (regardless of IDE) without .NET being installed, and SharpDevelop and VS bot require it to run. You need the framework libraries to compile against, and the framework itself to run or debug. This is like asking "Can I use my car without an engine installed?" - you can, but you won't get too far. :-) – Ken White Aug 31 '12 at 01:28

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It will not be possible to run any .Net program without installing .Net on the computer. Since both SharpDevelop and Visual Studio are .Net programs that need .Net installed on the machine.

I think you should consider using a virtual machine as suggested by @lc. I like and use Virtual Box

flup
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Rohit
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  • well if you don't have .net on the PC, but the application you are running has all the .NET runtime DLL's with it in the app directory... then it will work. –  Apr 15 '13 at 23:34
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If you want to take the advantages of debugging or even executing your application you will require .NET to be installed on the computer. If that isn't possible then you have to resolve to a different approach like use notepad++ or using a virtual machine which needs to be able to run as a portalable software as well.

Alternative, if the computers have .NET installed there is a way to make SharpDevelop portable, take a look at http://laputa.sharpdevelop.net/SharpDevelopOnAMemoryStick.aspx

coolmine
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  • Still might be an issue if .net itself isn't installed but I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't be seeings as from memory from XP onwards some version of .net is included with windows – Daniel Powell Aug 31 '12 at 01:22
  • I don't think you have any options if .NET isn't installed since in order to debug your programs .NET is required. If you simply want to code without debugging you could always use notepad++ – coolmine Aug 31 '12 at 01:24
  • @DanielPowell: .NET didn't become a part of a standard install until XP SP2 was released. It's possible the school is running an earlier version of XP (or hasn't updated to a recent .NET version, because XP SP2 was released with .NET 1.0, IIRC). – Ken White Aug 31 '12 at 01:31
  • @CooLMinE: The question was "Can I run SharpDevelop from a USB drive on a computer that does not have .NET?" - you didn't answer that question at all. – Ken White Aug 31 '12 at 01:32
  • Indeed Ken, my attention span didn't last long enough to read the few remaining words. Thought trying to program in c# without .NET might be a bit tricky. You either have to use a virtual machine which on it's own needs to be portable software as well, or just have no debugging at all. – coolmine Aug 31 '12 at 01:37