Many Windows programs require the .NET Framework to be installed on the system to run. When a .NET application is run on a machine without the required framework, they either don’t start or crash soon after starting. Windows ships with the latest .NET Framework version at the time of release, but to run old programs, you have to install an older version of the .NET. This scenario can be seen in the latest Windows 8 operating system as well. Windows 8 ships with the latest .NET Framework 4.5, however, to run programs developed with .NET 3.5, 3.0 or earlier, you’ve to install those.
To assist you in detecting all installed .NET Framework versions on your computer and downloading the missing ones, here’s ASoft .NET Version Detector:
.NET Version Detector is a small portable software that scans your computer for all installed .NET Framework versions and displays the result in a list. Along with result, it also provides you with download links to the related Microsoft webpage for versions that are not yet installed.
Installed versions are indicated with a white text in the colored boxes in the program interface. Gray texts are the ones you are missing.
The list on the right tells you exactly which .NET versions are installed on an operating system as standard. For example, Windows 8 ships with version 4.5 preinstalled.
The program is compatible with all Windows versions, and can detect all versions of the .NET Framework released till date.
Download: ASoft .NET Version Detector
You can also find this information by going to this directory: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\. Inside it, check these two folders to see installed .NET Framework versions:
- Framework (32-bit versions)
- Framework64 (64-bit versions)
You could also just run these commands in the command prompt to get the same result:
dir /ad %systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework | findstr v dir /ad %systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64 | findstr v
This will list the versions.