Bootstrapping without internet access?

Question

I have completed a C# winforms application to be installed on a system (Windows Server 2008) that does not now (nor will it ever) have internet access. There is a legitimate dependency on .NET 4.0 which is not installed on the system. After a long quest I finally found a .NET 4 x86/x64 "full" installer.

1. The MSI has a dependency on .NET 4.0, which I can not eliminate (won't let me delete)
2. The Setup.exe that should execute the bootstrap for .NET 4.0 REQUIRES Internet Access!(and I can't find a way to change this)
3. The "full installer" generates a "General Trust Error" (attempting to install with admin privileges. independently of the MSI)

Searches have resulted in so much result pollution that I can't find anything useful.

I would "most" like to be able to make the installer correctly install the .NET 4.0 framework as part of the installation process.

As a fall back I would like to be able to manually install Framework 4.0 without divine intervention - being an admin should be enough...

Answer 1

I suspect that error is actually Generic Trust Failure. Before installing something that claims to be the NET Framework it checks the certificate signing, and if the certificate chain isn't in the current certificate list on the target system you'll get this error.

This article pretty much sums it up, none of the options look good without internet access, except to manually update the root certificates on the target systems:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2694321

and there's a section that seems to allow offline approval.