Question about visual redistribution installs on pc

SkeeterUK · 24 Apr 2021 at 14:45

Noticed in add or remove section i got a lot of em, was wondering do i need all them or can i remove some if so which ones.

I know not technically gaming related but curious if gaming would be or windows for that matter, would be effected by all these?

arc@css · 24 Apr 2021 at 14:58

Good question, I wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about this.

TurtleTwo · 24 Apr 2021 at 15:13

More than likely all needed, I use this AiO: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/

Malevolence · 24 Apr 2021 at 18:20

Always ***** me right off when you install a new game via Steam and it has to go through the whole rigmarole of installing distributables and, for some bizarre reason, DirectX.

marc2003 · 24 Apr 2021 at 22:21

You should leave them all alone. You might think having the latest copy of each is enough but it isn't. Some applications/games will target a very specific version and won't work without it.

.Lethal · 26 Apr 2021 at 19:17

SkeeterUK said:
was wondering do i need all them or can i remove some if so which ones.

Unfortunately you need them all as some games rely on specific versions to run their games. I wish they were backwards compatible and we had just one version.

SkeeterUK · 26 Apr 2021 at 21:45

They should have just done what they did with direct x and have one install thing that installs one big installation of all the things needed as a one time item instead of lots of little ones. Ah well.

Tute · 26 Apr 2021 at 21:50

Malevolence said:
Always ***** me right off when you install a new game via Steam and it has to go through the whole rigmarole of installing distributables and, for some bizarre reason, DirectX.

I generally just block the "Steam Client Service" and then worry about things if the game doesn't work, rather than let it keep adding more unnecessary things to the registry. Some games will have a list of required Windows plugins in their Steam forum that you can go through if it fails to run.

varkanoid · 27 Apr 2021 at 08:40

Bit like Java - software was written for a specific version of Visual C++ and might need 2013 for instance.

Only way you can do a clean up is remove one, test all your games, remove another, test all your games. Laborious and not really worth it. Having them all installed doesnt affect anything.

d_brennen · 27 Apr 2021 at 08:44

Malevolence said:
Always ***** me right off when you install a new game via Steam and it has to go through the whole rigmarole of installing distributables and, for some bizarre reason, DirectX.

Valve probably rightly assume it's better to have a minor annoyance (it's a few seconds on a decent PC) than millions of support tickets saying X game doesn't work.

In the long run I think it's a fair trade off rather than the lottery of is this going to work or not and playing "guess what's wrong with me?" with games that don't work!

Steampunk · 27 Apr 2021 at 09:22

SkeeterUK said:
Noticed in add or remove section i got a lot of em, was wondering do i need all them or can i remove some if so which ones.

I know not technically gaming related but curious if gaming would be or windows for that matter, would be effected by all these?

Just leave them. Some games need specific versions of the libraries. In today's storage, it's a tiny amount of space on your drive. If you removed them, some software would start complaining they were missing (if you're lucky enough to get a useful error message) and you'd just have to reinstall them anyway.

Terminal_Boy · 27 Apr 2021 at 09:24

marc2003 said:
You should leave them all alone. You might think having the latest copy of each is enough but it isn't. Some applications/games will target a very specific version and won't work without it.

This.

snips86x · 27 Apr 2021 at 09:27

Some games, looking at you outriders, have stability issues when more than 1 version is installed. I uninstalled all of them and just the one required for outriders (2015-2019) and it stopped crashing. I have since stopped playing it but haven't had an issue elsewhere yet.

KompuKare · 27 Apr 2021 at 09:29

SkeeterUK said:
They should have just done what they did with direct x and have one install thing that installs one big installation of all the things needed as a one time item instead of lots of little ones. Ah well.

Sometimes Microsoft doesn't think.
Think of the .NET frameworks, there is no easy way to tell what you have installed. The "what do I have installed" answers all point to looking at various registry entries or a powershell query which does the same.
Compare that with WinVer: a simple command you can run on all version of Windows.