<p>Can you package up the .Net framework in an installer created in Visual Studio? If so how?</p>

<p>I've seen this done with Install4J packaging a JVM but I think that was the JVM to run Install4J.</p>

Sucky, yeah - I created an installer just recently before realizing that the .Net Framework (which was one of the things I needed to install) was required.  I ended up making a c++ program that installed .Net before my installer was launched.
Seems kind of odd to me to offer the ability to create an installer and not have it offer to install what it needs to run.  Kinda pointless at that point, eh?  Unless you know that every machine you give the installer to will have the necessary components...
Oh well, live and learn