MS .NET Framework Follow-Up Question

[Monroe]

After  updating .NET Framework 2.0 to .NF 2.0 SP2 over the past few days ... I have decided to completely remove all versions and files of .NET Framework. I have a backup available if I want to change my decision in the future.

 

When I first installed .NET Frame in 2012 ... it was only because a few programs required it on the computer. Several times if there was a program requiring .NET Frame, I would just search around for a similar program that didn't require it to be installed.

 

Anyway, I may have two or three programs installed that did require .NET Frame and I wanted to use them. I no longer remember for sure what programs they were, if there are any.

 

So my question ... if I remove .NET Frame and there are a few programs on my setup requiring it ... what will happen if I try to open one of these progams?

 

Will it just not open or will a box open saying that .NET Framework is required ... you will get a message when you first install some programs that .NET Frame is required, if it's not already installed ... but what happens if you remove .NET Frame after those programs have been installed?

 

Just to add ... if there are any of these old programs requiring .NET Frame on my setup ... I probably don't even need them and will remove them as discovered ... unless I really do need some version of .NET Frame on my computer for web pages or inner workings with my setup from downloading all the XP updates over the years.

 

thanks ...

Edited December 27, 2015 by monroe

[heinoganda]

First, if a program will need an older .NET Framework to install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, included in this are the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2. Because of the error messages that may occur if .NET Framework requires, fall diverse from eg the corresponding .NET Framwork that is requested or a program of this simultaneously with installed / downloaded or an error message or the program can be started not easy. Wen older ATI graphics cards are drivers that need definitely a .NET Framework 2.0 or higher, otherwise may thereby certain functions be limited.

 

[Monroe]

heinoganda ... I was checking the situation on older ATI drivers before I posted earlier and I have mostly found this answer with relation to the drivers.

 

I have this driver: ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 Driver ... but I have found this in searching Google.

 

April 12, 2006

 

My X1900XTX is my second ATI card, and I resisted installing .NET on my computer for my Radeon 9700 Pro for about a year because of the nasty stuff I'd heard, but after installing .NET I really can't say anything bad about it. It didn't break anything that I'm aware of and there are security updates for .NET.

 

April 12, 2006

 

You only need the .NET Framework if you install the Catalyst Control Center. And yes, its a piece of crap. When you're installing the driver choose a custom installation and only select to install the driver itself. No problems then. The .NET Framework itself isn't the problem though.

 

.net is not the devil and it does not break anything. You are right however that you do not need it for the drivers... only the Control Center.

 

You need Microsoft .NET Framework installed for Catalyst Control Centre (CCC) to work.

 

 

I am pretty sure I do not have the Catalyst Control Centre on my computer ... just the ATI 7500 driver, so that may be OK.

 

I did find this information: After Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) acquired ATI, the utility became known as AMD Catalyst Control Center.

 

monroe

 

[Monroe]

I thought I would post about my working to get the perfect "XP Factory CD" backup over the last 10 days. I wanted to achieve this before the end of 2015 ... have it ready for 2016 and beyond.

 

I had always decided to stop at version 2.0 for .NET Framework, just to have it available for any program that might need it.

 

I decided to update to version 2.1 and then to version 2.0 SP3. That took a day getting all the final MS updates downloaded and installed on my ThinkPads ... then after cleaning junk, logs and burning it all to a DVD ... I had a very good backup on Dec 26th ready for 2016.

 

However, the very next day I was thinking ... why do I need .NET Framework at all on my XP setup? I wasn't even sure I had one program on my XP setup requiring it. So I decided to remove all traces of .NET Framework ... do all the cleaning again and burn a new DVD backup. I still would have the Dec 26th backups with .NET Framework 2.0 SP3 installed but would use and work with .NET Framework removed.

 

So on Dec 28th ... I had those backup DVDs burned ... found a few mistakes or missed items ... I have a check off list but missed doing a log cleaner program and a setting or two.

 

So a new set of DVD backups were made on Dec 30th ... had a new problem with saved web pages not working correctly ... I posted about that here ... got it figured out and finally on Jan 6th made another DVD backup set for my ThinkPads ... finally the perfect backup ... I missed my goal of doing this before the start of 2016 ... but this should be that perfect Factory CD backup that I have been after for all of 2015.

 

I post all this because I was surprised at just how much space I gained on the DVD backup once I removed .NET Framework. I did not have the whole .NET Framework installed ... I knew the complete install does take up a lot of space ... I just didn't know only having part of it installed also took up a large amount of space on the hard drive.

 

I was still able to get everything on one DVD but it was getting close to where two DVDs would be required one day ... I didn't want to get there, wasting a second DVD for a just a few items.

 

Now with .NET Framework removed completely ... I will not be needing a second DVD ever or anytime soon.

 

Here are my DVD backup figures with .NET Framework installed and then removed on one ThinkPad.

 

With .NET Frame 2.0 SP3 installed:

 

5,092 GB ... with compression 4,580 GB

 

With .NET Framework completely removed:

 

4731 GB ... with compression 4,219 GB

 

So I now have more room to stay with just one DVD required in the future but I plan to burn no more DVD backups unless I discover some other missed items or junk hidden somewhere.

 

I will maybe do backups from now on to a 16 GB or 32 GB flash drive.

 

Have piece of mind now that I can quickly get back to a good, working system ... the only updates from MS these days for me ... are the MS Office 2007 updates that keep showing up almost every month. I'm good through the Dec 2015 updates on the DVD backups and I'm not even sure I will add future Office 2007 updates ... I will save them but do I really them, not sure at this point.

 

So far with .NET Framework removed ... have not noticed any problems.

 

... just to add or ask, if anyone else has made this decision earlier to completely remove .NET Framework from their XP system ... have you run into any problems doing so and had to re-install it?

 

Also to add, I did these additional clean ups on my system ... I found the information at a forum or an article a year or so back. I rebuilt the Layout file in the Prefech folder ... I had not done this since 2013 and it seemed to really have grown in size ... I guess it can be rebuilt over 72 hours but I found this instant rebuild ... I clean the items out of the old Layout file and then run this.

 

Rebuild Layout.ini File

 

Why wait three reboots or 72 hours, rebuild now ...

 

Start | Run | Paste:

 

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

 

Click OK

 

DFRGNTFS.EXE and DEFRAG.EXE will run ... assuming your disk is formatted NTFS.

 

 

then I came across these cleanup suggestions which I saved and have used with no problem except for one which I will go into detail later ... I  had to reset a Service from Manual to Automatic and no longer have a problem.

 

I still say to be careful using this information ... I've used the information enough on my XP system and now know what to expect. The one log cleaner may free up a lot of space on a computer ... this is from the system administrator who posted about it.

 

"Being a system administrator, I have used this command line to free as much as 500 MB of clutter from systems that had not been formatted for a long period of time. It is worth mentioning here that many cleaning tools had already been used on these systems on a periodic basis including the windows disk cleaner. However, these log files never seemed to be removed until this command was used."

 

From that forum I saved these various suggestions:

 

Cleaning Before Backup

 

Flushing the DNS Cache

 

Flush cache - Command: ipconfig /flushdns

 

View cache  - Command: ipconfig /displaydns

 

Defrag Prefetch File - Command: defrag c: -b

 

** I'm not sure Flushing the DNS Cache really is important ... it seems to fill right back up with information.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Note: A College of Ag Sciences Enterprise machine Windows XP-based computer records events in as many as six logs. You may clear all these logs. Normally, the largest log is the Security log. If you are receiving "log full" errors when the computer starts, you may clear just the Application, Security and System logs.

 

Under the Event Viewer, Right Click on Application and choose Clear all Events. When asked to save the log, click No.

 

Under the Event Viewer, Right Click on Security and choose Clear all Events. When asked to save the log, click No.

 

Under the Event Viewer, Right Click on System and choose Clear all Events. When asked to save the log, click No.

 

Close the Computer Management window.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Delete Log Files From Windows Directory Using Command Prompt

 

Many times after using numerous tools for cleaning clutter from a system, the primary drive still seems to lack free space despite the fact that there is little data saved on it. This is because there are many log files that remain in the Windows directory in the primary drive, which many tools are unable to remove. This command line will help you remove such unnecessary files which will help clear the log files from the Windows directory.

 

Simply open the command prompt and type: cd\ ... and hit enter.

 

Then type: cd windows ... to select the Windows directory and hit enter again. This will select the appropriate directory and give you the access from the command prompt to delete log files.

 

Now type: del *.log /a /s /q /f ... and press enter to delete the log files.

 

All log files will be deleted from the directory. In this command "a" signifies all, whereas "s" deletes files from all sub folders, "q" bars from any prompts to ask for a yes/ no question and "f" forcibly removes the files.

 

Being a system administrator, I have used this command line to free as much as 500 MB of clutter from systems that had not been formatted for a long period of time. It is worth mentioning here that many cleaning tools had already been used on these systems on a periodic basis including the windows disk cleaner. However, these log files never seemed to be removed until this command was used.

 

You can also empty TEMP folders (just type TEMP and %TEMP% ... one by one in RUN dialog box and press Enter and C:\Windows\Prefetch folders regularly to free up disk space.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Now to the problem I ran into using the "del *.log /a /s /q /f cleaner".

 

I had the Distributed Transaction Coordinator -- MSDTC Service set to Manual and it would not start after I ran the log cleaners. I found these instructions to restart the service and then I also changed the service from Manual to Automatic.

 

Distributed Transaction Coordinator Service Error

 

Tip 10458 - When you start the Distributed Transaction Coordinator service in Window XP,

or Windows Server 2003, you receive error -1073737712.

 

When you attempt to start the MSDTC (MicroSoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator) service in Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003, you receive:

 

Windows could not start the Distributed Transaction Coordinator on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor and refer to service-specific error code -1073737712.

 

The Application event log records:

Event Type: Error

Event Source: MSDTC

Event Category: LOG

Event ID: 4163

 

Description: MS DTC log file not found. After ensuring that all Resource Managers coordinated by MS DTC have no indoubt transactions, please run msdtc -resetlog to create the log file.

Event Type: Error

Event Source: MSDTC

Event Category: TM

Event ID: 4185

 

Description: MS DTC Transaction Manager start failed. LogInit returned error 0x5.

The System event log may record:

Event Type: Error

Event Source: Service Control Manager

Event Category: None

Event ID: 7024

 

Description: The Distributed Transaction Coordinator service terminated with service-specific error 3221229584 (0xC0001010). This behavior will occur if the MSDTC service cannot access the %SystemRoot%\System32\Msdtc\msdtc.log file.

 

To resolve this issue:

 

01. Open a CMD.EXE window.

 

02. Type "msdtc -resetlog" and press Enter, making sure that you DO NOT have any pending pending transactions before you run the command.

 

03. Type "net start msdtc" and press Enter. If your problem is resolved, exit this procedure.

 

*** There are more steps but fortunately for me the problem was fixed.

 

 

As I said be careful ... experiment with a backup in place. That log cleaner (del *.log /a /s /q /f) did seem to remove a lot of files and I use various cleaners all the time. If you run it a second time you may see a difference in cleaning speed from the first time you ran it ... it all happens very fast.

 

monroe

Edited January 8, 2016 by monroe