Question: I want to develop a small utility for windows and I prefer doing that in c# because it is easier (I'm a java developer). 

The utility will be available for download by many people and I assume some of them will not have the .net framework installed (is this assumption correct, say I target win xp and above?)

My question is: can a c# application be compiled in a way that it will not require the .net framework installed?

Answer: 
A minor aside - but in this scenario, consider developing the utility in Silverlight - it has a much smaller footprint and is supported on a number of operating systems. This might allow you to get the coverage including people who don't already have .NET.

If you need "normal" .NET, then "Client Profile" is perhaps an option.
In a related question, [Can you compile C# without using the .Net framework?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/551554/can-you-compile-c-without-using-the-net-framework), it's mentioned you could do this using mkbundle from mono. I haven't tried it myself so I can't comment on if it's the way you should go, but you may want to consider it.