Develop application for windows without any depedendency

I need to create an application for all versions of windows (XP, Vista, 7) without the need to install .NET or other 3rd party tools.

The application needs to download files asynchronous which are received in a json format an开发者_运维问答d display a html page which can communicate with the application using javascript.

Is there a way to do that using an advanced IDE like Visual Studio but without requiring anything besides the application exe? Are there any open source alternatives?

Thank you.

Look into the WebBrowser control. It's basically an Internet Explorer control you can embed in your application, and it has an interface that allows all sorts of manipulations. And given Internet Explorer is always a part of windows, it'll always be available without further installations.

Using the control requires some work. You can start by looking at Using the WebBrowser control, simplified. It uses MFC, but you can use the control with plain C++ as well.

The way I'd use it is push as many complicated tasks as possible to the browser control, and run them using JavaScript. A-synchronously downloading JSON is a pain in C++, but a no-brainer in JS. So you can basically divide your logic between C++ and JavaScript, and figure out some interface (by using, say, the DOM).