3.01 is out
http://msfn.org/comments.php?shownews=19610

Paint.NET v3.0x

v3.01 Released: February 26th, 2007 - Download
This is a small update that fixes a few bugs that have been found since 3.0 was released.

* Fixed: Crash when trying to save a palette with a blank name
* Fixed: Changing an image's DPI resolution did not set its "dirty" flag (you would not be asked to save changes)
* Fixed: Error messages at startup were covered by the splash screen
* Fixed: Crash when a modal dialog was open (such as an effect) when the user tried to logoff/restart/shutdown Windows, and they chose to save their images
* Mitigated some CPU usage issues when the app was minimized and a complex selection was active


This post has been edited by samurai1337: Feb 27 2007, 07:12 AM

1. Definitely yes. A much stronger version of MSPAINT

2. .NET framework is required.

3. Yes, as long as your Win2003 is SP1 or above.

LOL, you can't do that.

But you can always assign Paint.NET in environment variable, so that whenever you type paintnet (or any name you wanna assign) in start->Run it will open Paint.NET for you

Read more about it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_variable