.NET - multiple installed versions and "clutter"

[stockhausen]

I appear to have three copies of MS .NET loaded on my laptop:

v2.0 SP2 - 185MB
v3.0 SP2 - 179MB
v3.5 SP1 - 28.21MB​

Is v3.5 SP1 is so (relatively) small because it depends on the presence of v3.0 SP2?

Does anyone know whether I can safely delete MS .NET v2.0 SP2 and save myself some 185MB?

OS is XP SP3.


Many thanks for any informed responses

 

[NathanE]

Unfortunately not. .NET 2.0 to 3.5 are cumulative. They all build upon each other.

.NET 4.0 (coming in March/April) is finally going to break this chain of dependence. It will be completely standalone. So it will be possible to just have .NET 4.0 installed and none of the others.

 

[Sp00n]

As Nathan said, you need each version individually.

 

[LeJosh]

Sort of like how PhysX work, each directory depends on each other, there's a lot.

Good news to hear that .NET 4.0 will be independant.

 

[stockhausen]

I have now found a very comprehensive answer to this question HERE.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[Ricardox1]

Glad you sorted it

 

[Destination]

Althought 4.0 might be independant, it won't help much as folks using old games will still need 2.0 3.0 3.5 etc installed to make them work.

 

[wesley]

is there any 1 installer that contains all .net frameworks?

 

[lokkers]

is there any 1 installer that contains all .net frameworks?

I believe the full 3.5 installset contains all version. But I could be mistaken. Vista comes with .NET3.0 (and below), and I believe W7 comes with 3.5SP1.

 

[marc2003]

is there any 1 installer that contains all .net frameworks?

3.5 sp1 (231mb) contains 2.0-3.5 sp1 for x86/x64

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/e/20e90413-712f-438c-988e-fdaa79a8ac3d/dotnetfx35.exe

 

[.Simon]

If you want to completely remove a version of .NET Framework in the future, that blog you linked has a good cleanup tool. You can select individual versions to remove.

 

[bledd]

It's a pretty daft implementation they've got at the moment, it should have always just been one big library, with each version containing the previous

 

[wesley]

thanks for confirm, but when done fresh install XP, go to windows updates, it would download and install 2.0 first then 3.0? why not might as well use 3.5?

 

[MarcLister]

.NET 4.0 (coming in March/April) is finally going to break this chain of dependence. It will be completely standalone. So it will be possible to just have .NET 4.0 installed and none of the others.

Didn't even know .NET 4.0 was coming. But brilliant news about it being independent.

It's a pretty daft implementation they've got at the moment, it should have always just been one big library, with each version containing the previous

Aye. I just wonder what the thinking was to make a new .NET dependent on the previous version. Might have been OK with the first few versions of .NET but gets silly later on. At least it'll be rectified with 4.0.