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taytong888
join:2005-06-20
Nepean, ON

taytong888

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[WIN7] MS .NET Framework -Do I really need it?

Hi,

I am wondering if I really need MS .Net Framework, since I don't have any use for them. I found that monthly updates released by MS do not appear on the PC unless I first apply updates to those .Net Framework apps.

Thanks for your help.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

The short and unhelpful answer: you need .NET Framework if you want to run any program written against .NET Framework. We don't know what you want to run, and they might not tell you whether you need .NET in any case.

I don't know what the connection with Windows Update might be.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO to taytong888

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If you don't have any use for it, you certainly don't need .NET Framework at all, along with the flood of security updates it usually requires...

Dustyn
Premium Member
join:2003-02-26
Ontario, CAN

1 recommendation

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If it's on your computer, and you didn't install it specifically... then a 3rd party application more than likely installed it for it to function. Remove .NET Framework and you'll eventually find out which application will no longer function.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena to taytong888

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You don't need it as long as you don't install software that requires it. So the simple answer is, you don't need to install it until you do need it.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

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It is quite unusual today to not need some version(s) of .NET framework. I needed it back in 2000 when an early version was in beta and my cookie control program was completely rewritten as one of the first .NET programs and I was a beta tester. Since that time more and more programs need it. Dell computers have come for many, many years with a version installed and necessary.
Billy Brethr (banned)
join:2005-04-01
San Antonio, TX

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The standard question regarding the need for the existence of any of the numerous "support" softwares is "What are common examples of software that requires the installation of "X" software. I've never learned of any software that requires .NET except MUBlinder, which is WinXP Activation/Verification crack software for XP. I also know that Windows Media Player and NetFlix requires Silverlight.

I'm constantly looking at the trash on my computer and considering uninstalling it, just to see what happens. A site dedicated to the idea of listing these softwares and the softwares that require them in order to run might be very useful and generate a lot of traffic.
art22gg
Premium Member
join:2005-02-16
Courtenay, BC

art22gg

Premium Member

said by Billy Brethr:

A site dedicated to the idea of listing these softwares and the softwares that require them in order to run might be very useful and generate a lot of traffic.

+1

I have looked for such a site myself,but have never been able to find anything that was any help,or defining...
JoelC707
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Lanett, AL

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said by Dustyn:

If it's on your computer, and you didn't install it specifically... then a 3rd party application more than likely installed it for it to function.

This is the cold hard truth here in most cases. That said sometimes Windows Update can mess with this as things you may not want or need are automatically checked and if you just run WU without looking at the list you could wind up with something you don't need. I don't recall seeing .NET being in this category (it's always been an optional update initially) but it's good to know there are sometimes exceptions to this "rule".
said by Dustyn:

Remove .NET Framework and you'll eventually find out which application will no longer function.

The other advice is also what I was going to tell you. If you didn't install it then you can remove it and eventually you will find out what program needs it. It may take a while and you may never find it as it may be needed by a small portion of a program you otherwise may not use (the main part of the program may launch without it just fine). Eventually you will either discover you needed it or you didn't.

If you discover you did need it and you didn't happen to remember which version was installed, that's not an issue. With the exception of version 1.x and I think 2.x, all the newer ones are cumulative. If you had version 3.0 installed you can install version 4.5 (or whatever is the latest at the time) and get all the same features.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

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said by Mele20:

It is quite unusual today to not need some version(s) of .NET framework.

The only application I know of that I may need it for is Paint.Net.
said by Dustyn:

Remove .NET Framework and you'll eventually find out which application will no longer function.

That's the same advice I give people when I try to remove Java from their system. "Do you use Java applications?" "What's Java?" "I'll take that as a no. Thank you HP, for preinstalling a security exploit."
taytong888
join:2005-06-20
Nepean, ON

taytong888

Member

Today I had to install Seagate HD monitoring software. As a pre-requisite, it requires MS .Net 4.0 or higher. So I installed .Net 4.5. Answer found!

Babar
Premium Member
join:2001-05-09
Washington

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Since it's Tax season I'll mention that TurboTax requires .NET 4.0.

nwrickert
Mod
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL

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said by taytong888:

I am wondering if I really need MS .Net Framework, since I don't have any use for them. I found that monthly updates released by MS do not appear on the PC unless I first apply updates to those .Net Framework apps.

It came pre-installed as part of Windows. To me, it sounds like bloatware. But then I see Windows as bloatware anyway.

I apply the updates. If my computer has unneeded bloatware with security holes, I am still better off applying updates to patch those security holes.

And I'm posting this from opensuse, which has its own open source form of bloat.

Parkinson's law for computers: bloatware expands to consume all computer resources.

(I somehow manage to use firefox with only 4 extensions).

andyross
MVM
join:2003-05-04
Aurora, IL

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What's with the extreme anti-.NET attitude of many people? Does it really do anything to your computer to slow it down or anything, even if no program is currently using it?
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

No. It doesn't do anything bad. I think the "anti" folks are remembering the earlier versions...especially 1.0, 1.1, 2, 3. Those were a mess and quite a hassle sometimes to update. But starting with 3.5 things changed. I've had all versions from the earliest 1.0 beta on 98SE so I have a better perspective than some.

Hmmm... .NET goes back so many years I can't recall if it was 1.1 or 1.5...but you get my point. I remember more than once having to ask for help from a Microsoft employee whose specialty was .NET and who reached out to help a lot of us having problems with bad installs and updates and bad uninstalls...he was a big help...but I haven't had any problems since 3.5.
taytong888
join:2005-06-20
Nepean, ON

taytong888 to andyross

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No, I don't have any prejudice against .NET. It just that Windows keeps suggesting updates to more than one files of older version, e.g. 3.5.1 even though I have 4.5.1 already.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

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said by art22gg:

said by Billy Brethr:

A site dedicated to the idea of listing these softwares and the softwares that require them in order to run might be very useful and generate a lot of traffic.

+1

I have looked for such a site myself,but have never been able to find anything that was any help,or defining...

That is because there are probably hundreds of thousands of apps that require .NET. Programming in .NET is relatively easy to learn, and was actually designed to make it easier on programmers. Microsoft supports the .NET foundation, and virtually everyone can make their own software.

Previous company I worked for had its own development team, and often programmed in .NET for in-house apps.

You won't find a site of apps that need .NET, nor will you find one that need Visual Basic or C++ runtime installed.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

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It just sits there unless you're running programs written to the API.
dave

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That's because 4.5 is not necessarily a functional superset of 3.5. A program that is written to use version 3 is written to use version 3 and therefore needs version 3.

It's a standard engineering tradeoff: either you declare that version N+1 of an API *will be* strictly compatible with version N apps, which means you'll live with wrong decisions forever, or you declare it *may not* be compatible, in which case you may need multiple versions installed.
JoeSchmoe007
Premium Member
join:2003-01-19
Brooklyn, NY

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said by taytong888:

Hi,

I am wondering if I really need MS .Net Framework, since I don't have any use for them. I found that monthly updates released by MS do not appear on the PC unless I first apply updates to those .Net Framework apps.

Thanks for your help.

If you have Windows 7 (considering your OP has this tag) this is not a question whether you need it or not - .Net 3.5 is a part of that OS. So any updates to it (which are most likely security updates) should be treated as security updates to your OS. Would you really want to skip any of these?

DownTheShore
Pray for Ukraine
Premium Member
join:2003-12-02
Beautiful NJ

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said by andyross:

What's with the extreme anti-.NET attitude of many people? Does it really do anything to your computer to slow it down or anything, even if no program is currently using it?

That's always puzzled me too. I don't know how many times I've seen some free software offered on Giveaway of the Day, and people will immediately down-rate it and remove it from their computers because it requires a version of .NET. The tone of their remarks is usually comparable to how they would respond if someone accused their mother of having sex with armadillo.
DarkSithPro (banned)
join:2005-02-12
Tempe, AZ

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I've had issues in the past where after installing the newer .NET Framework I had to upgrade my perfectly working nVidia graphics driver, or else I would get constant BSODs. This is especially troubling when you have a Laptop, or a desktop AIO and the manufacturer doesn't offer you a new driver. Then you have to take your chances and see if the standard drivers will even work. Been there, done that.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

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Member

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said by andyross:

What's with the extreme anti-.NET attitude of many people?

The .NET framework is HUGE! And it can take forever to update. And you might not even need it except for the few programs that do.
Frodo
join:2006-05-05

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Process explorer will hilight processes using Net, I think by default. In my process explorer, they're showing as yellow processes. On my system, I see EMET_Agent.exe and PresentationFontCache.exe. I think if net wasn't installed, I wouldn't be seeing PresentationFontCache.exe attempting to run, since it is located in net directories.

I like the EMET process.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

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said by Mele20:

No. It doesn't do anything bad.

Really? Then why it always requires security patches? Or may be you don't install those?..

And second, you obviously don't care about your computer resources, if you don't mind installing huge package of software kit that you may not need to use. So far, I have not find yet a program (requiring .NET to run) that can't be replaced with other very similar equivalent, that doesn't ask you to install this bloatware package... For example - cookies manager for IE (that you've mentioned earlier as the reason why do you need the .NET) could be easily replaced with IECookiesView. Which is much smaller (doesn't require .NET) and works very well for many years for me...
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

said by OZO:

said by Mele20:

No. It doesn't do anything bad.

Really? Then why it always requires security patches? Or may be you don't install those?..

And second, you obviously don't care about your computer resources, if you don't mind installing huge package of software kit that you may not need to use.

You don't install .NET (any version) on Windows 8 computers. ALL versions from 2 on come installed as a PART OF WINDOWS. You can turn them off, if you wish, but you can't uninstall them and you still need to do the security patches. As you can see from the screenshot, I only have a tiny part of .NET 4.5 turned on. I turned off ASP.NET. But I still have to get the patches for 4.5.

I agree that on Windows versions prior to Windows 8 where you do install them that they are huge. On XP Pro, it came with .NET 1.1 installed by Dell and was needed for certain Dell programs. I later installed .NET 2.0 SP2 which included .NET 1.0, also installed .NET 3.0 SP2, .NET 3.5 SP1 and .NET 4. I have security patches for each of them and all are uninstallable including 1.1 that Dell installed. It was only once I got .NET 3.5 SP1 on XP Pro that I have stopped having a lot of problems which sometimes meant I had to uninstall all versions and reinstall each one.

The cookie control program was the first piece of software I ever bought a few months after I got my first computer...98SE. It wasn't written for .NET when I purchased it. It was a couple of years later that the vendor decided to completely rewrite the program and was one of the very first to use .NET 1.1 beta for it. I was a beta tester for the new CC version until I realized that even with daisy chaining Proxo I could not use both programs as Cookie Crusher was rewritten to use a proxy server to deal with cookies and it and Proxo together slowed my computer way, way down. So, I had to bow out of the beta test and once the old version of Cookie Crusher was no longer supported, I stopped using it. By then Fx (maybe still Firebird?) had proper cookie controls as did IE so I never got another 3rd party cookie control app.

The fact that .NET needs security patches does not mean it is inherently "bad"...unless we also say that all programs and all Windows versions are "bad".
19579823 (banned)
An Awesome Dude
join:2003-08-04

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One time I tried to run a program I found here on the software base Mele and it said it couldnt run cause I dont have .NET installed......... (I dont see a need for it (the program I was trying i wasnt that concerned with anyway so i didnt bother))

trparky
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join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

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Re: [WIN7] MS .NET Framework -Do I really need it?

quote:
.NET Framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in a software environment (as contrasted to hardware environment), known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. The class library and the CLR together constitute .NET Framework.

.NET Framework's Base Class Library provides user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. Programmers produce software by combining their own source code with .NET Framework and other libraries. .NET Framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform. Microsoft also produces an integrated development environment largely for .NET software called Visual Studio.
What does this mean? Well, simply put it allows for applications that programmers may create without having to "re-invent the wheel." It means that programmers can write less code and do more in less time because most if not all things that a programmer may need to do is already in the .NET Framework in some way. Simply put, it makes programmer's lives easier.

Not only that but if the programmer has written the program in a completely managed programming language (VB.NET or C#) they don't have to worry about the common pitfalls of more lower level languages such as C++ with all of the pointers, buffers, stacks, etc. which can all lead to various security issues. It takes the hard stuff out of the hands of people who could completely F* things up.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

To state your last paragraph differently for the audience: if you choose to program in a managed language such as C#, then your program will depend on some version of the .NET framework.

And to state what may not be obvious to non-programmers: you want to choose your programming language based on the support it gives you for implementing the thing you're trying to implement. Though I'm no longer a Windows programmer and was rarely any kind of application programmer, I suspect that C# is the right choice for Windows application programming today.