How can I tell if .NET Framework 3.5 is installed or not?

4. .NET Version Check

Version Check is aging a bit these days and hasn’t been updated for several years, but it still works. When we tried, Version Check detected the latest .NET Framework 4.8. Make sure to run this tool as Administrator, even if you are an Administrator, otherwise nothing will be shown in the window relating to version numbers.

There is also a check on the version number of the currently installed Internet Explorer which might be useful for older systems. Some buttons are provided for copying the information to the clipboard and printing or emailing it. Inside the zip file, there is a command line version (.com file) that you can use in batch files. The command line version doesn’t need administrative privileges like the GUI version does.

The information provided in both the GUI and command line tool gives a version number as opposed to an easily readable name. That can make it difficult to determine whether minor or service pack versions are installed.

Download .NET Version Checker

5. Use PowerShell to Detect .NET Versions

While it’s possible to use Command Prompt or PowerShell to get the versions of .NET present on your computer, many methods found online give incomplete results. Like our own tool does, the best method of determining installed .NET versions is by querying the Registry, and PowerShell can do that quite easily.

gci ‘HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP’ -recurse | gp -name Version -EA 0 | where { $_.PSChildName -match ‘^(?!S)\p{L}’} | select PSChildName, Version

The list of names is slightly unfriendly and you won’t get better information like service pack numbers or minor revisions. It also will not detect .NET 1 or 1.1 as they are at a different place in the registry to all other versions.

Another option is downloading a ready made PowerShell script that will detect .NET versions and show the information in a much more friendly way.

The .Net Framework Installed Versions Getter script is hosted on Github and makes the information easier to read for most users. It currently supports and detects from 1.0 up to the latest .NET Framework 4.8.

Download .Net Framework Installed Versions Getter

6. Checking Manually

There are a few manual ways of checking which versions of Microsoft .NET Framework are installed. One of them is through “Programs and features” or “Add and Remove Programs” in Control Panel. This is a very basic way to check but could also be wrong because the uninstall entries that are displayed can be easily be removed from the registry or left over from a previous install. Also, versions of .NET that are integrated into the operating system will not show.

Another manual way of checking is to look in the folders where most of the .NET program files are stored to see what’s in there. The location is in the C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework folder and also the Framework64 folder for 64-bit systems. Hover over the folder to get its size in the info tip (we use Free Commander below to get all folder sizes at once).

The .NET version 1.0 and 1.1 folders above are practically empty on this system. Therefore it’s safe to assume they are not installed. The v4.0.30319 folder can be misleading because it could contain any single version of .NET 4 from 4.0 up to 4.8 or above. Open the folder and hover over a DLL or executable file to get an info tip that shows the real installed version of .NET 4.

It’s not the most accurate method but at least gives you a rough idea of what’s installed by just using Windows File Explorer.

The .NET Version Detecting tools are handy for getting some useful information about exactly what versions a user has installed which is good for troubleshooting. If an application requires .NET v4 or higher and you only have v3.5, problems or crashes will likely be averted by installing the correctly required version.

Where is .NET Framework 3.5 installed?

How can I tell what version of .NET framework is installed?

Is .NET 3.5 installed by default?