a simple mind with a simple question

[Andriese]

I don't know much about operating systems and applications, but please don't
flame me for asking a simple question.
I work on XP and use the usual Office suite.
A business partner of us has given me some software to do calculations and
business projections, but has told me first to download and install
Microsoft .Net Framework. Or the software won't work.

A friend of mine is rather enthousiastic about .Net but warned me that
installing the .Net Framework could mean that some other applications (non
MS) that I regular use, will not function properly if I try to remove .Net
Framework.

I have looked around at Microsoft website but could not find any LAYMAN's
explanaion what .Net Framework does and its advantages and disadvantages.
Technical information: plenty enough available but not for NONO's like me.

Is there someone who can shed some light on the implications, dangers (if
any), what to do's of this apparently important piece of technology?

Thanks, Hans

 

[Christopher Kimbell]

From an application point of view, the framwork provides an execution
environment.
I can't see why installing/unistalling the framework should break existing
non .NET applications. From what I gather, the .NET runtime is hosted in a
COM server, this has never existed before so non .NET programs don't know
about it. The remaining files that are installed rely on the framwork in
order to work, so no non .NET applications should rely on them.

When installing the framwork, there are several versions available, 1.0 and
1.1. There are some breaking changes between them, but they can be insalled
side-by-side. If possible install both, the .NET applications will use the
version they were created with.


Chris

 

[james]

As another person has already stated, the .NET Framework being installed or
uninstalled will not effect any NON-.NET program on your system. Now, if
you have a .NET Framework dependent application already on your system and
as you stated a NON MS program, uninstalling the framework will stop that
application from working. This meaning the program is from a source other
than Microsoft but, was written using one of the Visual Studio.NET languages
which uses the .NET Framework(s).
Otherwise, you should be just fine.
james

 

[Nick Malik]

To join the chorus,

Your friend, with all due respect, is mistaken. Installing .NET will not
break anything. Uninstalling it will only break an application that uses
it. (Regardless of origin... Microsoft is not the only company that uses
..NET.) Right now, you have no applications on your system that use the
framework, so these apps will continue to run even after you uninstall it.

Note: The .NET framework comes installed in new versions of Microsoft
operating systems. You only have to install it on older systems.
There is no good reason to uninstall it... ever.

--- Nick

 

[Christopher Kimbell]

Nick pointed out that the .NET framwork is already installed on newer
Windows versions.
This is only true for Windows Server 2003 (.NET 1.1), all other versions
require explicit installation.
Windows XP does not include it because it was released about 6 months before
the .NET framework.

Chris