Microsoft .NET files - what is actually required on the machine?

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antoniosk

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#62199 1-Jun-2010 08:54

My vintage XP machine - parts of which are only 3 years old - has been running slowly for quite some time now, mainly related to keyboard and screen responsiveness.

I've long suspected a few things, including the WIFI and Video Card being on the same IRQ (I know ACPI should deal with this. But should is a widely used term in ICT), as well the Microsoft .Net distributables.

Like most folks I just let Windows Update do what it wants and don't query it, trusting to Microsoft to get it right.

Do I actually need 1.0, 2.0, 2.0SP1, 2.0SP2, 3.0SP2 and 3.5 all on the machine?

If they are incremental builds then sure... but each file is huge, and it looks like they are installed side by side... which is never a good place to be with software.

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Antoniosk

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#336920 1-Jun-2010 09:40

I thought I could cheat as well, and just use .Net 3.5. Not to be. Many apps look for a particular version of .Net, and not smart enough to work out that a version of .Net higher than the one that the app is expecting is already installed.

Much the same as those that write apps expecting a certain version of DirectX, and then dump old versions of DirectX all over your latest version of DirectX.

My thoughts are no longer my own and is probably representative of our media-controlled government

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xcubed

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#336921 1-Jun-2010 09:43

The answer is quite simply: it depends.

It depends on which applications you have installed as to which versions of the .Net framework you need to have installed. Most applications only need .Net 1.1 or .Net 2.0, but there are few that require .Net 3.5.

.Net 1.1 and .Net 2.0 are quite different, while .Net 3.5 is actually just .Net 2.0 with a bunch of extra libraries. It makes sense to install these side-by-side as they are not backwards compatible.

The .Net runtime libraries are are unlikely to be causing performance issues on your machine, as they are only loaded when you're actually using them. I suggest you have a look at some of the basics first:

- Defragment the hard drives
- Make sure your video drivers are up-to-date
- Uninstall any applications/services that you're not using

xpd

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#336933 1-Jun-2010 10:06

Ive found .net 2.0 is required quite a bit and .net 3.5 is installed all the time because Server 2008 and latest RDP work so much nicer with it installed (for printing etc)

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Ragnor

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#337023 1-Jun-2010 13:42

It won't be the .net framework as mentioned it's just a set of libraries and api that programs use.

I would suggest:

Clean up:
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Defrag:
http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

Remove junk from starting at startup
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Monitoring what is using the most memory/cpu:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx