Bootstrapping The .NET Framework Without An MSI Installer

I recently needed to test the idea of whether or not I could bootstrap .NET v4.0 onto a WinXP machine, from a USB thumb drive, without an application installer for the target app. The goal was to insert a thumb drive, run the app directly from the root of the thumb drive and have .NET 4 installed onto the system if it wasn't already there, prior to the application starting up. The High Level