Fresh Win7 install ton of .Net Framework 3.5.1 updates?

[SpongeBob]

So I'm curious here why there are so many .Net 3.5.1 updates when you can just install .Net 4.0. Do you need to install all of the 3.5.1? Wouldn't 4.0 have all of the stuff that was in 3.5.1?

 

[Demon10000]

They are there in case you don't want .net 4. I'd install 4.5.1 and update tha instead of 3.5.

 

[SpongeBob]

Well thats the thing, after I installed .net 4 windows installed a ton of 3.5 crap.

 

[MysticRyuujin]

The .NET versions don't really replace each other. There are apps that will only work with 3.5 for one reason or another...nothing to do but buckle down and install em.

 

[SpongeBob]

The .NET versions don't really replace each other. There are apps that will only work with 3.5 for one reason or another...nothing to do but buckle down and install em.

Forgot the answer re-looked it up months later. Forgot to say thanks, thank you.

 

[bigdogchris]

.net 3.5.1 replaces 2.0 and 3.0. .net 4.5.1 replaces .net 4 only.

You need 3.5.1 and 4.5.1. The list is here.

This also explains why .net 4.0 is separate from previous versions.

 

[InorganicMatter]

Wouldn't 4.0 have all of the stuff that was in 3.5.1?

The .NET versions don't really replace each other. There are apps that will only work with 3.5 for one reason or another...nothing to do but buckle down and install em.

Sort of, but not really. Version numbers for .NET are a little confusing since you have the version numbers of the libraries themselves (.NET), then the underlying runtime (CLR) that those libraries use. The CLR is what applications are actually targeted at.

.NET 2.0, 3.5, and 3.5.1 all use CLR version 2.0.
.NET 4.0, 4.5, and 4.5.1 all use CLR version 4.0.

An app made for a CLR will run on any of the .NET versions that use that CLR. So for example, you can run a .NET 2.0 app in .NET 3.5.1, but you cannot run it in .NET 4.0. Likewise, you can run a .NET 4.0 app in .NET 4.5, but not 3.5.

Thus, even in Windows 8.1, you need .NET 3.5.1, so you can run apps that were targeted at older versions of .NET. That's why it shows up in your Windows Update, and will probably continue to for several versions of Windows, since there's still a lot of software out there targeting the CLR 2.0 series of .NET.