A suitable native Windows development platform for a .NET developer
Greetings to this great community. Here is my question.

During development of .NET Windows applications I keep running into the same problem over and over:

I am eager to use the latest and greatest .NET framework with all the shiny new features, but that requires the user to have that version of .NET installed, which in turn requires an at least moderately up to date version of Windows.

This turns out to be OK in a corporation/private setting, where you can request the client to conform to the requirements.

But when developing applications for clients who want to give the application to outside users of any kind, this quickly grows into a huge problem. 250 MB .NET downloads and limited Windows version compatibility are a big no-no.

I have tried several products that claim to enable the .NET application to work without the .NET framework, but the only ones that work do their job by some form of virtualization, which ends up with huge executables (upward of 100 MB). This is just not the natural way of doing things.

As much as I understand it, my only way of going around this problem is turning to native application development. This rules out all the "cool" kinds of development, such as .NET and Java right away.

.NET seems to be for development under "controlled conditions", while native applications are "for the wild".

I need an up to date development platform, with a good IDE, capable of creating applications for all currently used Windows versions (XP SP1 and upwards would be OK). Also, a language close to C# and libraries close to .NET are preferred, but not a must.

To my knowledge, Visual C++ can create native applications in Visual Studio, but I am worried this is more of an afterthought for MS.

There is also Delphi, which seems to be centered around doing just what I need done.

What development platform would you recommend? (others are also an option) Am I wrong entirely and .NET development is actually suitable for a broad clientbase of non-technical users?

long-winded, I know :)
A suitable native Windows development platform for a .NET developer
===

Greetings to this great community. Here is my question.

During development of .NET Windows applications I keep running into the same problem over and over:

I am eager to use the latest and greatest .NET framework with all the shiny new features, but that requires the user to have that version of .NET installed, which in turn requires an at least moderately up to date version of Windows.

This turns out to be OK in a corporation/private setting, where you can request the client to conform to the requirements.

But when developing applications for clients who want to give the application to outside users of any kind, this quickly grows into a huge problem. 250 MB .NET downloads and limited Windows version compatibility are a big no-no.

I have tried several products that claim to enable the .NET application to work without the .NET framework, but the only ones that work do their job by some form of virtualization, which ends up with huge executables (upward of 100 MB). This is just not the natural way of doing things.

As much as I understand it, my only way of going around this problem is turning to native application development. This rules out all the "cool" kinds of development, such as .NET and Java right away.

.NET seems to be for development under "controlled conditions", while native applications are "for the wild".

I need an up to date development platform, with a good IDE, capable of creating applications for all currently used Windows versions (XP SP1 and upwards would be OK). Also, a language close to C# and libraries close to .NET are preferred, but not a must.

To my knowledge, Visual C++ can create native applications in Visual Studio, but I am worried this is more of an afterthought for MS.

There is also Delphi, which seems to be centered around doing just what I need done.

What development platform would you recommend? (others are also an option) Am I wrong entirely and .NET development is actually suitable for a broad clientbase of non-technical users?

long-winded, I know :)