Publish Portable and Self-Contained .NET Application in Windows 7

Question

I need to release an application that:

1. must not be installed
2. must not involve the installation of dependencies for its execution if they are not installed on the PC in use (no versions of C ++, versions of .net Framework, etc ...).

For this purpose I made the application in .NET 5.0 and published it according to the settings visible in the image. In the settings I specify the Self-Contained property.

Running the application on Windows 11, Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 I have no problems but on Windows 7 I have a .NET Runtime ID 1023 error as in the image.

What could be the problem? How should I publish the application so that I don't need to install anything?

Answer 1

Unfortunately Windows 7 SP1 is supported only with Extended Security Updates installed. The same statement also applies to net6.

I managed to get it to work (with net6) by installing those updates from the Microsoft Update Catalog:

• Windows6.1-KB3063858-x64.msu
• Windows6.1-KB2999226-x64.msu
• Win7AndW2K8R2-KB3191566-x64.zip

this is Windows Management Framework 5.1

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64) - 14.29.30135

In addition, in some installation, I had to also install PowerShell v7.2.1 .

I was unable to run the application on a fresh install of Windows 7 SP1 in any way.