Although the concept of a Client Profile is not new and was introduced in .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, the .NET Framework 4
Client Profile contains several important improvements:
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.NET Framework 4 Client Profile (NEW)
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.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Client Profile
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Supported OS
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Supported on all platforms and OSs that are
supported by the .NET Framework (excluding IA64 and the Server Core role in
W2K8)
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Supported only on Windows XP 32-bit machines that did not
have any .NET Framework version installed.
(Client Profile setup silently installs the full 3.5 SP1
Framework otherwise)
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Redistributable
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Supports redistributable as well as web download
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Supports web download only
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Add Remove Programs entries
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The full Framework comprises the Client Profile and
another part called “Extended”. Thus it has two entries in the Add/Remove
Programs dialog (or Programs and Features window).
If you installed the Full Framework, you can switch to the
Client Profile by simply removing “Extended” from Add/Remove Programs.
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Single entry in Add Remove Programs
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Visual Studio
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Improved support for Client Profile targeting in Visual
Studio 2010.
By default many Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 Client project
target the NET4 Client Profile.
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Single checkbox in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 “Application”
Project properties for .NET Framework 3.5 projects. Client Profile support
unavailable in out-of-the-box VS 2008.
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Features
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Includes new .NET 4 features (such as Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF),
C#
4 Dynamic Keyword, etc) as well as features previously included in NET
3.5 SP1 Full (Speech, WPF Spell Check, etc)
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Subset of features in .NET 3.5 SP1 Full
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Because .NET 4.0 is a side-by-side release from previous
releases of the .NET Framework, installation of the .NET 4.0 Framework does not
require that prior versions of .NET on the machine need to be
serviced/patched. This means that the .NET 4.0 Client Profile installs
much faster on a machine than the .NET 3.5 SP1 Client Profile.
