Why Can’t I Uninstall the Microsoft .net Framework?

Posted by Martin in Windows, software  Tags: , , , ,

1

Aug



I lately tried to uninstall the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 from my system only to find out that I could not do it. The uninstallation program told me that other applications installed on my computer were depending on that Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 and Microsoft was displaying the link http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=91126 to a Microsoft support page for uninstalling Microsoft .net Framework 3.0.

While that did not help I looked through my installed programs to find out which applications could depend on the Framework and the only other programs that I could come up with were the other Microsoft .net Frameworks that were installed on my system. Both the Microsoft .net Framework 3 and 3.5 were also installed on the computer.

I decided to uninstall the other two Frameworks and the only that I could uninstall was the last one, the Framework 3.5. Once that was uninstalled I was able to uninstall the Framework 3.0 and finally, after that I was able to remove the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

It seems that the newer Microsoft .net Frameworks depend on older versions that are also installed on the computer. The only viable choice you have if you want to uninstall an older version is to uninstall the newer versions as well and install them again after the old one has been uninstalled.


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7 Users Commented In This Post

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Lewz Scruz says:

@Martin: i hear that the .net framework 3.0 = .net 2.0 + winfx (windows presentation foundation, windows communication foundation, etc), and .net 3.5 = .net 3.0 + language integrated query and some extensions. you cannot install .net 3.5 without the previous two, as they both depend on it. hope this explains things.

Martin says:

Lewz Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 includes .NET Framework 2.0 service pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.0 service pack 1.

I guess you still end up with three separate installations.

Martin says:

Lewz I tested it just a few minutes ago. I uninstalled all previous versions of the Microsoft .net Framework and downloaded and installed the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 afterward.

The Microsoft .net Framework 2 Service Pack 1 and the Microsoft .net Framework 3 Service Pack 1 were automatically installed as well.

Jeff says:

The .Net 3.5 framework actually uses the 2.0 CLR, as well as some BCL classes for LINQ. Requirements for 3.5 are 2.0 Framework with SP1, and the 3.0 SP1 package.

Marc-O says:

sadly, it’s typical of (microsoft’s) byzantine installations and dependencies.

Rarst says:

>sadly, it’s typical of (microsoft’s) byzantine installations and dependencies.

To be fair Linux has its share of dependencies as well. I remember installing file manager in Ubuntu and suddenly getting A LOT of extra stuff needed for it to work. :)

Marc-O says:

> To be fair Linux has its share of dependencies as well. I remember installing file manager in Ubuntu and suddenly getting A LOT of extra stuff needed for it to work. :)

true enough… Other systems are not spared. From my experience though, on Ubuntu, apt-get/dpkg makes the installing/uninstalling/dependency checks much smoother than the “standard” windows way of doing it. (might have changed in vista though).

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