[RANT] I wish .NET would burn in hell!

[M_Lyons10]

Wow, this might just be the most ridiculous rant, no post, I've ever seen. Maybe you should read up a bit on exactly what .NET is and what it does... And .NET releases have included prior releases (except for 1.1 for years...).

[argonite]

Well this topic went downhill rather quickly.

To the OP: Please look into update server solutions to automate your job.

/thread

[PGHammer]

.NET updates are indeed really annoying and incredibly slow. I'm not talking about an enterprise system here but whenever I've got to fix computers for friends and family the numerous .NET updates always make everything take AGES.

Which is *exactly* why I like how Windows 8 handles runtime upgrades/updates - and especially .NET.

For example, if any application or game needs *any* version of .NET below 4.0, Windows 8 will install it for you; if you have an Internet connection, it will leverage it. (Otherwise, it can install from the source media of Windows 8 itself.) In fact, .NET Framework 2.0/3.0/3.5 are all rolled into a single install. (.NET 4.0 is included with Windows 8.)

[Martog]

I agree .net takes forever to install, but someone can correct me if i'm wrong, MS .net installers do a lot more than just install the .net runtimes, it also creates a system restore point which by itself takes ages.

System restore points should only take awhile if the system is slow, for a single update they are generally fast.

The reason .NET updates take awhile to install as they are basically re-generating native images for your system, IE optimizing .NET for your specific system, so the applications that run on .NET will work best on your system, instead of creating a generic package for all computers. Yes the updates take longer to install than others but it is to provide the most optimized experience for the .NET applications. It is one of the many reasons .NET is a great framework.

The Native Image Generator (Ngen.exe) is a tool that improves the performance of managed applications. Ngen.exe creates native images, which are files containing compiled processor-specific machine code, and installs them into the native image cache on the local computer. The runtime can use native images from the cache instead using the just-in-time (JIT) compiler to compile the original assembly.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf(v=vs.80).aspx

[MtnDewCodeRedFreak]

I noticed in the Programs and Features applet that all versions prior to 4 have been removed after installing .NET 4.5.

Hallelujah - less mess to deal with.

[timmmay]

If you don't have the ability or time to run up WSUS, I highly recommend using WSUS Offline which you can get from here: http://www.wsusoffline.com/

It's a free utility which downloads updates and stores them in a local repository. If you have a new machine you just plug it in and install the updates. I use it all the time! It's especially handy when I'm running up a PC and don't have an internet connection handy.

[Aethec]

I noticed in the Programs and Features applet that all versions prior to 4 have been removed after installing .NET 4.5.

Hallelujah - less mess to deal with.

That seems unlikely. .NET 4.5 should only touch .NET 4.0 - if it removes anything below, it's a bug. Maybe they're just hidden in the add/remove Windows features dialog?

[GreenMartian]

That seems unlikely. .NET 4.5 should only touch .NET 4.0 - if it removes anything below, it's a bug. Maybe they're just hidden in the add/remove Windows features dialog?

Yeah, 3.5 is definitely still there. But it's nowhere to be seen in the Add/Remove Programs (I still call it that :p).

And here's the kicker, in Win 8, 3.5 isn't there by default. So if you see 4.5 in Programs, you can't really tell from there whether you do OR don't have 3.5 ...

[Aethec]

You can check whether 3.5 is installed in the Add/Remove windows features dialog - not Add/Remove Programs.

It's possible to force a 3.5 app to run on 4.5 anyway :)

[neufuse Veteran]

Either I got really lucky, or you got royally screwed. We licensed about 50 copies of Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 and when they 2012 version came around, we were automatically entitled to the new version. Since they changed Forefront to System Center Endpoint Protection 2012, and integrated It into SCCM, we got a license for SCCM and a SQL Server 2008 Standard license included. We originally paid less than $3000 for 3 years.

How many servers are you manageing? When we moved up the licenseing structure when we bought SCCM we had to pay for it all independently, we even had issues, somehow going to SCCM triggered a software license audit by MS... we originally paid a whole $7,000 for SCCM at least thats what our vendor said we only had to pay, after the licenseing audit we were told we were not licensed for SQL Server (at a cost of $7,500 for a 1 processor license, even though we had 5 existing SQL Server 2008 R2 licenses, they forced us to buy another one since we didn't want the SCCM database on the other production OLAP database servers.. that and I think 2007 ony supported SQL Server 2005? i forget we had to install 2005 and 2008 R2 was supported in 2012 or something), we were not licensed for the server management (at a cost of $1,500 per license)... it added up way to fast and we almost had a heart attack when we got the "pay us this much or uninstall the software immediatly" notification... we ran to our vendor and they basically told us they f'ed up (this is a big vendor too... they even had MS licenseing people verify the licenses when we bought it originally and didn't catch this)... plus software assurance to go from 2007 to 2012 SCCM added a big to the price to...

[PGHammer]

Yeah, 3.5 is definitely still there. But it's nowhere to be seen in the Add/Remove Programs (I still call it that :p).

And here's the kicker, in Win 8, 3.5 isn't there by default. So if you see 4.5 in Programs, you can't really tell from there whether you do OR don't have 3.5 ...

.NET Framework 3.5 isn't there by default (same with earlier versions) because nothing in 8 uses it - hence the install-on-request setting for *all* .NET runtimes prior to 4.0 (which is part of Windows 8). The same applies to all other runtimes (VC++, DirectX, etc.) .NET 4.5, on the other hand, is newer (hence it installs as an update). I have one game (Need for Speed - Hot Pursuit 2010) that requires both an earlier DirectX runtime *and* .NET Framework 3.0.