We're hosting a WCF web service on a server running the latest version of Windows Server.
We have many different clients running different versions of Windows. For example, 2000, XP, Vista and a couple of Windows 7.
Can I run a program that consumes a WCF service in Windows 2000? What do I need for a WCF service to run well on the client side?
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Its very hard to answer your question without knowning the requirements of the web service which is exposed on the 'latest version' of windows.
The most important part of this will be "which binding(s) is/are being exposed by the WCF service".
If this is 'basicHttp' or 'wsHttp' you will be able to communicate with this service using a .Net 2.0 client (wsdl.exe proxy). If this is not the case, it will become harder to implement.
Bottom line; a Web Service is not tied in to the development platform it has been written on. The real important part of a web service is it's contract (which is described by WSDL). If the contract exposed can be consumed by .Net 2.0 tools, you can communicate.
If they cannot, you either have to use 'extensions' (like WSE) or go the manual route which i both advise not to take!
ps; WCF != WebServices. WCF is a toolkit that can be used to build a web service or rest service. "Traditional webservices used the Basic Profile 1.1" which consist only of XML, XSD, WSDL and SOAP.
hope this helps,
A WCF service can be consumed by any client that can communicate with SOAP. The performance of the WCF service has nothing to do with the client OS. If performance is an issue with the WCF service it is most likely a connectivity or bandwidth issue from the client to the server. How you choose to consume the service is up to you. The WCF service will continue to run on your server and perform any methods you invoke from the client on the server.