How to reliably detect the actual .NET 4.5 version installed?

by

MS recently patched .NET 4.5 to restore backwards compatibility with .NET 4.0 in some scenarios (see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2012/10/17/net-framework-4-5-off-to-a-great-start.aspx).

It’s possible that MS updated the setup with these changes (so that users upgrading to .NET 4.5 don’t run into compat trouble), though I don’t know why they wouldn’t change the version number on the setup.

Also, note that there’s a difference between the .NET version number and the runtime version number as reported by System.Environment.Version. The latter still is 4.0.30319.* for .NET 4.5, only the revision number changes (with the .NET 4.5 update, and also with every security update).

Here are some examples of runtime versions observed in the wild:

Base 4.0

  • 4.0.30319.1 = .NET 4.0 RTM
  • 4.0.30319.269 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7, 7 SP1 (with MS12-035 GDR security update)
  • 4.0.30319.276 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3 (4.0.3 Runtime update)
  • 4.0.30319.296 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7 (with MS12-074 GDR security update)
  • 4.0.30319.544 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7, 7 SP1 (with MS12-035 LDR security update)
  • 4.0.30319.1008 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7, 7 SP1 (with MS13-052 GDR security update)
  • 4.0.30319.1022 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7, 7 SP1 (with MS14-009 GDR security update)
  • 4.0.30319.1026 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7, 7 SP1 (with MS14-057 GDR security update)
  • 4.0.30319.2034 = .NET 4.0 on Windows XP SP3, 7, 7 SP1 (with MS14-009 LDR security update)

4.5

  • 4.0.30319.17626 = .NET 4.5 RC
  • 4.0.30319.17929 = .NET 4.5 RTM
  • 4.0.30319.18010 = .NET 4.5 on Windows 8
  • 4.0.30319.18052 = .NET 4.5 on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
  • 4.0.30319.18063 = .NET 4.5 on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (with MS14-009 security update)

4.5.1

  • 4.0.30319.18408 = .NET 4.5.1 on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
  • 4.0.30319.18444 = .NET 4.5.1 on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (with MS14-009 security update)
  • 4.0.30319.34014 = .NET 4.5.1 on Windows 8.1 64-bit

4.5.2

  • 4.0.30319.34209 = .NET 4.5.2 on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
  • 4.0.30319.34209 = .NET 4.5.2 on Windows 8.1 64-bit

4.6 and later

  • 4.0.30319.42000

I don’t see any .NET updates in my Windows Update history, so I guess the update to v18010 got installed as part of KB 2756872.

Update: apparently Microsoft updated the .NET 4.5 setup due a mistake with the digital signatures in the original download. KB 2770445.

More Related Contents:

  1. How do I detect at runtime that .NET version 4.5 is currently running your code?
  2. NetworkStream.ReadAsync with a cancellation token never cancels
  3. Retargeting solution from .Net 4.0 to 4.5 – how to retarget the NuGet packages?
  4. Can Visual Studio 2012 be installed side-by-side w/ Visual Studio 2010?
  5. Does .Net 4.5 support XML 1.1 yet (for characters invalid in XML 1.0)?
  6. Why does List implement IReadOnlyList in .NET 4.5?
  7. What does the Microsoft.Bcl.Build NuGet package do?
  8. Differences between .NET 4.0 and .NET 4.5 in High level in .NET
  9. Using a proxy with .NET 4.5 HttpClient
  10. Is the CallerMemberName attribute in 4.5 “able to be faked”?
  11. What does the caret (‘^’) mean in C++/CLI?
  12. Which method performs better: .Any() vs .Count() > 0?
  13. .NET obfuscation tools/strategy [closed]
  14. Thread vs ThreadPool
  15. Nuget connection attempt failed “Unable to load the service index for source”
  16. Why isn’t there an XML-serializable dictionary in .NET?
  17. What is the significance of ProjectTypeGuids tag in the visual studio project file
  18. Extracting files from an Attachment field in an Access database
  19. Why seal a class?
  20. InternalsVisibleTo attribute isn’t working
  21. Cannot attach the file *.mdf as database
  22. SqlDateTime.MinValue != DateTime.MinValue, why?
  23. Dependency graph of Visual Studio projects
  24. Warning: Found conflicts between different versions of the same dependent assembly
  25. When should copy-local be set to true and when should it not?
  26. What are alternatives to generic collections for COM Interop?
  27. How to fix DNX/DNVM in Visual Studio 2015?
  28. Are nested Try/Catch blocks a bad idea?
  29. Determine whether .NET assemblies were built from the same source
  30. String.Split VS. Regex.Split?

Leave a Comment