I wrote about the WinFx name change on Friday, WinFx becomes .NET 3.0.

One of my questions had to do with .NET 2.0 and whether there will be a new CLR. Jason Zander clears that up here: .NET 3.0 is the combination of what was WinFx (WCF, WF, WPF, WCS), and .NET 2.0. So, no, there will not be a new CLR.

Some people have complained that this introduces some confusion because the .NET product version number doesn’t match the CLR. Of course, it could get pretty harry going forward, because .NET is more than just the CLR.

I agree that this can be confusing, but if you buy that the name change is a good idea (which I do) then this is the best solution. The alternative — arbitrarily bumping up component versions to match the product version — is misleading and will cause developers much more headache.

I do hope, though, that we are not heading back to a time when it was nearly impossible to detect what versions of .NET are actually installed. Remember the list of file versions and manifests that you had to pour over to detect which Visual Studio 6 service-pack you had? Did this ever match what was installed on your machine? Not for me.

What we need is a simple tool to tell us what is installed. How about it? Microsoft, can you commit to a simple tool (supported, unmanaged, open-source, available in binary with a free redistributable) to determine exactly which .NET is installed? This will save your ISVs some headache.