Deutsch/English  

What is a .NET Framework and where do I get it?

The .NET Framework (by Microsoft) is a runtime environment providing functionality for running applications which depend on this framework. See Wikipedia article .NET Framework for more information.

There are several different versions of the .NET Framework:

  • 1.0, 1.1
  • 2.0, 3.0 (included in Windows Vista), 3.5 (included in Windows 7)
  • 4.0

It might be possible that an application asks for .NET Framework 3.5 (or a lower version) even if 4.0 is installed on your machine. In this case just install the required version. Several versions can coexist on one computer.

Download .NET Framework 3.5 (includes 2.0 and 3.5)
Download .NET Framework 4.0
Windows Update might also work for downloading .NET Frameworks.