Find Problems in Installed .NET Framework with .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool

In these days many good software requires .Net Frameworks for its functioning. Few days back I wrote about .Net Version Detector, with which you will be able to check if you have the required .Net Framework installed in your PC for running a particular software. Often installed .Net Framework gets corrupted and do not work properly. As such software that depends on that .Net Framework reports error or even reports absence of that .Net Framework. .Net Version Detector is useless in such scenario since it will detect installed versions of .Net Framework even if it is corrupted. So, you will then need another tool called .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool that can verify status of the installed versions of .Net Framework by searching for all the files, directories, registry keys and values that is needed by the particular .Net Framework. It also checks if some simple applications which require that particular .Net Framework can run properly. The applications is also able to detect which versions of .Net Framework is installed in a OS.

Features & Specifications

The software is distributed as a small archive [netfx_setupverifier_new.zip ; 238 Kb] that contains the application [netfx_setupverifier.exe ; 272 Kb , No digital signature] along with two text file; readme.txt describes the usage of the software and history.txt lists when the most recent version of the tool was published and what changes have been made to the tool over time.

The .NET Framework setup verification tool supports verifying the following products:

1. .NET Framework 1.0
2. .NET Framework 1.1
3. .NET Framework 1.1 SP1
4. .NET Framework 2.0
5. .NET Framework 2.0 SP1
6. .NET Framework 2.0 SP2
7. .NET Framework 3.0
8. .NET Framework 3.0 SP1
9. .NET Framework 3.0 SP2
10. .NET Framework 3.5
11. .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
12. .NET Framework 4 Client
13. .NET Framework 4 Full

Upon executing netfx_setupverifier.exe, it asks you to accept the license agreement and then extracts the files in temporary directory and runs setupverifier.exe .

Upon clicking 'Verify Now' button the verification process starts and dos the job in three steps.

• It validates Files & Directories of that .Net Framework.

• It validates Registry Keys and Values associated with that .Net Framework.

• Finally it runs a test application that depends on the presence of that particular .Net Framework.

• At the end of all verifications it will show a successful message!

You can then choose another version of .Net Framework to verify or may view the log for detailed information.

The log file is saved in the temporary directory [%temp%] and contains lots of information but at the beginning it will list the number of installed .Net Frameworks. So, it also does similar job as .Net Version Detector.

It will also show the path of the log file that contains the errors experienced by the application during verification of .Net framework. The error log is also present in the same temporary directory [%temp%].

As you can see in the screenshot above the error log clearly lists the problems in .Net Framework 4 installation in my PC.

The software is 'almost' portable. I told 'almost' because it extracts the files in temporary and runs the main executable setupverifier.exe . If you want to make a portable version of this application.

• Rue the application.
• Open Task Manager [Ctrl + Shift + Esc].
• Locate the process setupverifier.exe (32 bit OS) or setupverifier.exe*32 (64 bit OS).
• Right click on it and click on 'Open File Location'.
• Copy all the files in that directory and paste in a new directory. You can keep that directory with you as the portable version of this application.

The software includes only the Test Application of .Net Framework 2.0 and 4.0. It uses the test application of .Net Framework 2.0 to verify .Net Framework 3.0 and 3.5. I was not able to understand this point because an OS having .Net 2.0 installed will respond to .Net 2.0 test application irrespective of the presence of .Net 3.0 and 3.5. The developer must have some reason.

The software lists only the installed versions of the .Net Frameworks. But you can make it to show all the .Net Frameworks by running the .NET Framework setup verification tool with the following command line switch:

netfx_setupverifier.exe /q:a /c:"setupverifier.exe /a"

and for the portable version

setupverifier.exe /a
Many other things can be done with this application as is well documented in the User's Guide.

It runs on all versions of Windows both 32 bit and 64 bit. It consumes moderate resources during its verification process.

My Verdict

As I already told this application was able to detect problems in my .Net Framework 4 installation. So I will suggest you to use this application if you are facing similar problems.

Download

The application can be downloaded from the following direct link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-components-postattachments/00-08-99-90-04/netfx_5F00_setupverifier_5F00_new.zip
or from Softpedia
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/NET-Framework-Setup-Verification-Utility-Download-116571.html

MD5     :9DA59F4228CCC75C937DA06EA787FB6F
SHA1    :112E0F8C8B0A713AA7F75F6B5625597957A72999
CRC32   :08BDC618

Cheers !!