First, I have read the following:
So, from the last bullet, I really think there is no way around this, but I had to see if I could get a definitive answer as my team would like to upgrade from .NET 4.0 to .NET 4.5. However, we have to support XP.
Is there no possibility of going to .NET 4.5 if we want to support XP?
The only thing I could think of is creating two separate solutions, but then the codebases would have to diverge if we used .NET 4.5 features.
So, I am looking for some amazing workaround that I could not find and others maybe already know.
This question is related to
c#
.net
.net-4.0
compatibility
.net-4.5
The Mono project dropped Windows XP support and "forgot" to mention it. Although they still claim Windows XP SP2 is the minimum supported version, it is actually Windows Vista.
The last version of Mono to support Windows XP was 3.2.3.
Sadly, no, you can't run 4.5 programs on XP.
And the relevant post from that Connect page:
Posted by Microsoft on 23/03/2012 at 10:39
Thanks for the report. This behavior is by design in .NET Framework 4.5 Beta. The minimum supported operating systems are Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Windows XP is not a supported operating system for the Beta release.
Try mono:
http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html
This download works on all versions of Windows XP, 2003, Vista and Windows 7.
Last version to support windows XP (SP3) is mono-4.3.2.467-gtksharp-2.12.30.1-win32-0.msi and that doesnot replace .NET 4.5 but could be of interest for some applications.
see there: https://download.mono-project.com/archive/4.3.2/windows-installer/
Source: Stackoverflow.com