UDK requirements

Question

I've made a small game with UDK (Unreal Development Kit, release of December 2011 UDK Beta) and used frontend to package my game;

When I install the game on the user's computer (the OS of the user is Windows XP SP3 32 bit or Windows 7 SP1 32 bit without .NET Framework), the installer program follows the steps below:

1. install .NET Framework 4 (full installation)
2. run UE3Redist.exe (this program installs DirectX & Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package for x86 and x64)
3. copy the required files

I tried to not install the .NET Framework 4 but it gives this error:

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TestGame.exe - .NET Framework Initialization Error
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To run this application, you first must install one of the following versions of 
the .NET Framework: v4.0.30319 Contact your application publisher for instructions 
about obtaining the appropriate version of the .NET Framework.
*

1. Why is the .NET Framework required?
2. If I want to build my custom setup for my game, do I need to install the .NET Framework 4? (I read UDK System Requirements.)

Answer 1

I made a game with UDK, and after packed with FrontEnd and installed on other computer, it required things that you have mentioned. I installed all of the things needed and afterwords uninstalled .NET 4, and my game worked just fine. I presume that .NET is required for some system tasks within your game, like saving/loading game data such as checkpoint, scores and similar, which I didn't have in my game. This, of course my not be the case, I will inspect more, but since my game worked, I believe that .NET is something that only UDK installer requires. Will try to pack with some other installers and see what happens.

Also, I made two games with Unity, and it didn't require any external packages.