I had to reload my machine yesterday (story here). It was not fun. In the process of installing applications I came across a peculiar issue with Microsoft’s .Net Framework which didn’t appear to have much documentation, so I’m documenting it to save others with this problem time & effort.
In reloading my machine there were a few applications that required the .Net Framework 2.0 from Microsoft. I then attempted to install Sony’s Sound Forge v8 to find that it will only run using the 1.1 version of the framework. So there’s a problem: different applications requiring different versions of the .Net framework. I already had 2.0 installed, could I install 1.1 and be able to run all the apps I need? The answer was suprisingly simple: YES!
Microsoft in a fit of surprising sanity & intelligence designed the .Net framework such that
- applications requiring 1.1 will only call 1.1, while applications requiring 2.0 will only call 2.0
- each successive version is standalone as to avoid DLL hell
It blows my mind that for once Microsoft did something right! Now if they could just apply this to Vista or Office 2007 the world would be a better place…
Same here.
Thanks for the info. I was kinda hesitant to install .Net 1.1 “over” 2.0, now I see it’s really “alongside”.