Why do i need so many visual C++ and net framework versions?

Hey Cerawy,
You shouldn't uninstall them and as you've found out they just come back. Different programs install/use different versions of C++ Redistributable and the same goes for Net Framework, but it only has a couple of versions.

Note: I have 16 of the C++ Redistributables, from 2008-2017 for both x86 and x64 :)

Is that all. Most people will have a larger number than that.
Visual C++ have 7 versions. .NET Framework serves a similar purpose.

They are installed by Applications that require a certain version to work. Relatively small so why worry about it.

They come back because some Applications requires them.
Stop fiddling about, you are sobotaging your applications.

Hi there

I don't know much about Windows coding but surely IMO all an application needs to do is to concentrate on the actual task in hand and then for things like the GUI bits simply call the standard API. --or perhaps programming is taught differently these days.

I was brought up on things like MVC (Model View Controller) where you separate out the business / use bit from the actual GUI stuff -- that way you don't need to change the .Net or visual C ++ stuff each time -- but what does an old fool like me know about coding !!.

Model-View-Controller

cheers

jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I don't know much about Windows coding but surely IMO all an application needs to do is to concentrate on the actual task in hand and then for things like the GUI bits simply call the standard API. --or perhaps programming is taught differently these days.

The Visual C runtimes are the standard APIs. This is similar to how a new version of glibc is released every 6 months.

However, with every version of Visual Studio and every bug/security fix, MS adds/removes/modifies APIs. This potentially breaks backwards compatibility (whereas glibc tries to maintain backwards compatibility - though this isn't always successful either), hence the need for multiple versions of the C runtimes.

PolarNettles said:

The Visual C runtimes are the standard APIs. This is similar to how a new version of glibc is released every 6 months.

However, with every version of Visual Studio and every bug/security fix, MS adds/removes/modifies APIs. This potentially breaks backwards compatibility (whereas glibc tries to maintain backwards compatibility - though this isn't always successful either), hence the need for multiple versions of the C runtimes.

Hi folks

I still can't really see why one should need so many versions -- for example assuming the business logic in the program doesn't change -- i.e Read data, do something with it and then get / display stuff for user for next action.

Surely the call to a screen / window etc should be standard. OK in the new GUI's you can have resolution, colours etc - but an old program would simply use the basic parameters while newer stuff could make use of new facilties in the hardware.

I'm sure the basic interface needn't actually change much - but you can still run some really old fashioned Visual basic programs even on Windows 10 using simple MVC type of stuff with basic Window / GUI handling.

Cheers
jimbo

The basic APIs do not change across VS version but the ABI can. But it looks like MS has started to address this with VS 2017 - C++ Binary Compatibility between Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2017 | Microsoft Docs

Why didn't they do this before? Maybe they had to do something to justify getting organizations to move to each new version of VS. Otherwise parts of the org that didn't need the new features could stay on the old VS and still be compatible with the parts of the org that did move to the new VS.

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