CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Prakash
Prakash

Reputation: 81

Is it okay to install .NET 3.5 if I already have .NET 4.0 installed?

I have a Windows 7 laptop which has .NET 4 installed.

It also has folders for version 2, 3 and 3.5 of the .NET framework in the %WinDir%, but the main assemblies such as mscorlib.dll etc. are only present in the folders designated for versions 2.0 and 4.0. The rest of them have a very few DLLs and mostly just config files.

My goal is to compare the members in an assembly of version 3.5 with that of version 4 of the same dll.

My questions are: a) Can I install version 3.5 from the Microsoft website and then compare the two versions?

b) If I do install version 3.5 now, will that screw up with the version 4 that is already installed on my machine?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2067

Answers (2)

Hans Passant
Hans Passant

Reputation: 941218

You already have 3.5, it came pre-installed with Win7.

What you see in the directories is normal, all of the core assemblies in the framework, like mscorlib.dll, as well as the CLR are still version 2.0. .NET versions 3.0 and 3.5 only added new assemblies, they didn't include a new runtime version. It is still 2.0.50727. The next new runtime version was 4.0.30319. Note how 4.5 uses it, same idea.

So, no point in doing this, you already have it.

Upvotes: 2

Simon Farshid
Simon Farshid

Reputation: 2686

Yes.

You can install and run multiple versions of the .NET Framework on a computer. You can install the versions in any order.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y549e41e%28v=vs.90%29.aspx

For your first question, you could also take a look at MSDN documentations and compare those, but having .NET 3.5 might not hurt if you are planning on using it anyway.

Upvotes: 5

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