I'll share my experiences!
I have a very nice old ratty Sony Vaio Laptop. I have to move forward - .NET is the way to go!
Going to the Microsoft Windows Update page and installing the .NET Framework failed.
Cutting a long story short, I updated the Microsoft Installer. (That is I decided that the Microsoft Windows Update page could see that the Microsoft Installer was out of date, or iffy, or broken. So I went to this page.... ahhh I cannot link to it... Has a wierd URL decoration.... use Google to look for:
I upgraded MDAC. A good thing to do. Certainly wasted some time. This may have been a waste of time: the .NET still did not install from the Microsoft Windows Update site.
"Windows Installer 2.0 Redistributable for Windows 95, 98, and Me"
It's somewhere on Microsoft Home, Download Center Home.
Now I run the Microsoft Windows Update page and install the .NET Framework.
Yes it gets installed!
I double check: the Microsoft Windows Update page installs SP 2!
All very time consuming!
Good! Now I have .NET.
I copy and run up a small app. (32k with debug - that's small!)
(I chased my tail with a exception - running off a share point network drive! That 's another story.)