6 replies to this topic

[jimo1mo]

Up until about 6 months ago, when M$ said I needed these .Net Frameworks things, I did not D/L nor
install same. I never had any applications which said they could not load or run. Today when checking
google & spending looong time reading all subjects, the only thing I could come up with that I use is
Windows Defender (I can get along very well without this application). Then you have these "cumulative
updates" but according to M$ you can't uninstall old ones. (i.e. version 2 & version 2 SP2). Why not ?
Also - other than Windows defender, can someone tell me which apps need ANY of them ? To me, they
are just taking up space. Or am I missing something here ? In add/remove (Ctrl Panel) I have 28 items
which pertain to this ".Net Frame Work". ????

[Berton]

The question has arisen on other forums and basically .NET Framework can be uninstalled in Add or Remove Programs. However, some programs need it to run and some of those programs need a specific version. I have 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 installed.

For fairly modern computers the amount of HDD space is pretty much immaterial when considering 160GB and larger HDDs.

If an installed program needs .NET Framework to run you can be assured of being told when it doesn't run. I've not yet seen a definitive list of programs that take advantage of .NET Framework.

[jimo1mo]

Tkx Berton - I know this has been asked on other forums - been reading them all - just thought that
maybe someone on here could shed some light on same. I said earlier I had 28 items under the
.Net Framworks but there is only 26.. For example under Framwork 2.0 Svc Pac 2, there are 10
subjects under same, these must be part of the 2.0 & then under 3.0 Svc Pac 2 there are 11 subjs.
Then under 3.5 SP1 there are 2.
Ya, I have enough room on my HD for same but was thinking, I had no problems before I D/L
these. Maybe one of these days when I am bored, I will just un-install them all & see what happens
after that. http://www.smartestc...tyle_emoticons/default/smile.gif

[Berton]

I was cleaning up my E-Mail yesterday and came across this in one of them from 12/4/2008:

Quote

XP Service Pack 3 blocks .NET security patches

By Susan Bradley

Installing SP3 on Windows XP eliminates the operating system's ability to install important security patches for Microsoft's .NET technology and possibly other software.

This problem forces XP SP3 users to apply patches manually to complete vital updates.

The new error is the latest in a long series of glitches relating to XP's SP3, which Scott Dunn described in his Sept. 11 Top Story. The issues include spontaneous rebooting of systems based on AMD chipsets, as documented by Jesper Johansson in a blog post from last May.

To determine whether your XP SP3 system has a version — or multiple versions — of the .NET Framework installed, open Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs applet and look for it among the list of currently installed programs. If you don't see any .NET entries, you don't have the framework installed on your system and needn't be concerned about the update problem.

If you do see a listing for Microsoft .NET Framework, you need to use a third-party update service such as Secunia's Software Inspector (described below) to patch the program.

A Sept. 16 post on the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) blog disclosed that .NET 3.0 would not be offered to XP SP3 users. On Sept. 23, Microsoft Knowledge Base article 894199, which tracks changes in the company's patches, indicated that .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.0 Service Pack 1 should be offered to XP SP3 workstations as optional patches.

However, when I tested this on various Windows XP SP3 configurations, I wasn't offered .NET 3.0 as an optional patch. Things got really dicey on my first attempt to install .NET on a Windows XP SP3 machine. During that test, updates for .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 failed midstream. I had to use the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility (which is described in KB article 290301) and Aaron Stebner's .NET Framework cleanup tool (download page) to uninstall the partially installed .NET frameworks.

Ultimately, I had to install .NET 3.5 SP1 in order to get any .NET framework loaded onto the test XP workstation. While the latest version of .NET 3.5 is a cumulative patch and thus could be installed in place of prior versions of .NET, what invariably occurs is that line-of-business applications require and install earlier versions of .NET.

For example, one of the programs I use regularly is QuickBooks, which includes .NET 1.1 in some versions and 2.0 in the 2008 and 2009 releases. I recommend against removing various versions of .NET if the frameworks were installed by your applications.

On my second and third tests of Windows XP SP3 machines, Windows Update did not detect .NET 3.0 as an optional update, but the frameworks were installed without error just the same. However, to manually update the XP systems, I first had to install Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage tool, which is described in KB article 892130.

Next, I had to upgrade the installer program, as described in KB article 898461. After installing these two programs and returning to the Windows Update service, the XP SP3 machine was offered .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 as optional updates but not .NET 3.0 as a patchable item.

[OhDear]

A lot of programs uses .net Framework. If you don't have a particular version needed for a new program to run it will usually just install it. That is probably how you got the ones you have now.

The fact that they just install a given release of .net Framework will give quite a few people problems later on because the .net Framework should be installed in order: First 1.1 and it's service (and language) packs. Then 2.0 and all it's packs. Then 3.0 etc...

Many Microsoft programs also benefits from .net Framework. For example: the latest service pack for 3.5 improves the PC's start-up performance.

There are also security issues involved. Many more of the service packs released for .net Framework closes vulnerabilities. The Microsoft products SilverLight and .net Framework can to a minor extend be compared to Java and can be exploited by malware if not updated.

[dobhar]

My beloved Paint.Net requires it... http://www.smartestc...tyle_emoticons/default/smile.gif

Quote

.NET 3.5 just came out. Does Paint.NET work with it?
Yes. .NET Framework 3.5 builds on 2.0 and 3.0 -- if you have 3.5 installed then you meet the requirement of having 2.0 installed. This contrasts to how .NET 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 were all designed to be installed "side-by-side": if an application required .NET 1.1 it would not necessarily run if 2.0 was installed, but you could have 1.1 and 2.0 installed at the same time and have everything work (usually). The next big release of Paint.NET, version 4.0, will require .NET 3.5. In the short term there is no reason to upgrade past .NET 2.0 unless you want to get the download and installation time out of the way.

http://paintdotnet.f...topic.php?t=489

[OhDear]

I don't get it. You still need all the .net Framework versions if you want to be covered. Quoting Microsoft - Source:

Quote

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 contains many new features building incrementally upon .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0, and includes .NET Framework 2.0 service pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.0 service pack 1.

It contains service packs for 2.0 and 3.0. Not the .net Framework 2.0 and 3.0 volumes themselves. The guys who wrote that on Paint.net's Forum pages should do a little reading. http://www.smartestc...tyle_emoticons/default/tongue.gif