>Steve,
>
>>just wouldn't want to have to force someone to download that thing for a trivial application.
>
>Maybe you shouldn't use it for your downloadable "hello world." :-)

David and Steve,

Firstly, just remember that not everyone lives in the US/CA :) Not everyone has access to T1 lines and super bandwidth at cheap prices. Here in SA I pay a ridiculous fortune for bandwdth.

Secondly, there are huge numbers of users worldwide that do not have the necessary equipment to install .Net. Millions and millions of them. Look at how MS had to push back the W98 "dead" date. Even then I know that thousands of users will not upgrade. If what they have works why would they?

Third, for non-IT people (and even for some like me) upgrading is just a PITA. End users need to not only buy new hardware, and new software, but also pay someone to do it (or get their kids to :). And why should they do this again? So that their email looks pretty or for the new screen savers? For most private users the compelling reasons to upgrade the hardware to handle .Net is not there if current solutions work well.

Personally I have XP and W2K and there is nothing in XP that I am so in love with, that I must have, and long to have on my W2K machine. Nothing. In fact, XP is a resource hog :)

My wife just "upgraded" to XP. Why? Because her 98 machine finally packed up and died and the new machine came bundled with XP. This is how I think many end-users will end up "upgrading". And that I think will take a long time.

Just a thought from the other side of the world :)

Later