Microsoft .NET Framework question

I just bought an ATI Radeon HD3870 card, and plan to replace the GeForce 7900GS that is currently installed. This system is dual boot with Win XP Home Edition and Vista 32bit. On ATI's site, I downloaded both the XP and the Vista Versions of their Catalyst driver suite, though I suspect that they are the same. While reading the release notes, I am told I need Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0. I checked in my add/remove folder, and there is nothing like that installed. I went to microsoft to download version 2.0, but saw that 3.5 is available.
Which should I download? I see that 2.0 is about 22 megs big, but 3.5 is only around 2 or 3 megs, yet the description says that 3.5 contains all of the features and incrementally improves on 2.0 and 3.0. Should I download 2.0 as ATI recommends, and then "upgrade" to 3.5, or should I just get 2.0 and leave it at that? Also, I haven't yet looked under Vista's version of add/remove programs. If there is no .NET Framework installed there, should I look for a Vista version of it, or does one work under both operating systems?

 

Hi Skaler2k,

You will need to download and use .NET 2.0 if that's what the card manufacturers state. Unfortunately, higher version numbers of .NET Framework are *not* newer or all-containing versions of the "Smaller version numbers ".

You may still run into applications that require the downloading of yet another version of .NET, such as 3.5. Different applications *may* require different versions of .NET.