Not only must people have gone out of their way to explicitly install Managed DirectX in addition to DirectX, but they will have to have installed the December 2004 release (not Oct 04, Feb 05 or the upcoming Apr 05). If they don't have the right version, then the program with crash with some incomprehensible error message along the lines of
Application has generated an exception that could not be handled.
Assuming that there are some motivated souls who still wish to install the December 2004 Managed DirectX, what choices does Microsoft offer? Users are forced to download the 35MB redistributable to obtain the 3.5MB Managed DirectX installer, because Microsoft does not allow the distribution of the Managed DirectX installer by itself.
For FractalPeaks, the easiest solution would be to offer a download containing the dll files required. They would sit in the FractalPeaks folder, and not require installation. However, though this is by the far best solution for end-users, Microsoft does not allow the redistribution of the Managed DirectX dll files in this manner.
Much as I dislike large installers for tiny programs, in the interests of my end-users I have created an installation program for FractalPeaks which checks and installs the relevant software with as little user interaction as possible. It uses Nullsoft's NSIS, and was inspired by the installer for World Wind.