Installing .NET 4.0 Framework for both 32- and 64-bit Win7

[sjhein]

I need some guidance on how to best install the .NET 4.0 framework for both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Professional.

If I choose the 32-bit (non x64) application runtimes in IA, they will install just fine on both the 32- and 64-bit Win7 and our 32-bit application will run just fine. However, I have run into a problem with this approach. On 64-bit Win7 If you ever need to uninstall or repair the .NET Framework (say to install the 64-bit version of the framework), the .NET installer blocks the repair/uninstall with the error:

"This setup program requires an x86 computer. It cannot be installed on x64 or IA64 computers."

In order to uninstall the .NET Framework in this situation, it appears you have to download and run a ".NET Framework Cleanup Tool". This is not something I want to have to support with our end users.

If I choose the x64 application application runtimes in IA, everything works just fine on Win7 64-bit, but the framework obviously won't install on a Win7 32-bit system.

If instead of using the IA application runtimes to install the .NET framework, I use the MS standalone installer (dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe), then everything works fine on both Win7 32-bit and 64-bit - the blocking error isn't displayed when you try to maintain the .NET framework installation on the 64-bit machine. I suspect there are additional "smarts" built into the MS installer that chooses to install different versions of the installation program depending on whether it is running in a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows.

I would prefer not to have to create separate builds for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Win7 or have to include both sets of runtimes in our installer (effectively doubling the size). Is there a way to achieve similar behavior to the MS installer but still use the IA application runtimes?

FYI, I am currently running IA 18 build 7.1.14.

Thanks,
-Scott

[FrancescoT]

Dear Scott,

please have a look at the following links.
http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6006
http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8492

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[sjhein]

Francesco,

Thanks for the fast response - the links indeed look like they will be helpful.

Best regards,
-Scott

[FrancescoT]

[sjhein]

To close the loop on this... I had been using IA 18, which had separate application runtimes for the x86 and x64 versions of the .NET 4.0 Framework. Based on the links Francesco provided, I was able to set up an installer that checks whether it is running in a 64-bit environment and installs the appropriate runtimes. However, this requires including both sets of runtime files in the installation (for our single-file installer). Since I was doing system maintenance anyway, I installed the latest version of IA X2 (19.08) and discovered that it has a single application runtime for both x86 and x64. This new application runtime behaves much like the MS installer and addresses the problem I was having more elegantly than the prior approach. So, it is definitely worth upgrading to the latest release if you are dealing with this issue.

-Scott