Thursday, December 06, 2007

Tech: Broken .Net 1.1 Update

Windows Update / XP has a very annoying bug with a .NET Framework service packs or hotfixes such as MS05-004. For some unknown combination of factors some the updates will either refuse to install, OR more annoyingly install with no errors but show up again as 'uninstalled'. There are a whole bunch of tricks and black magic you can use to fix the problems. However, the only sure fire way I have found was to use Aaron Stebner's .NET Frameworks Cleanup Tool:

Download all the .NET Redistributable packages and Updates you need

Download and run the .Net Cleanup Tool

Uninstall ALL .Net versions ( you can try to uninstall only the offending .NET version, but don't say I didn't warn you )

Restart

Reinstall each of the .NET Frameworks you need