Robinb said:
Here is the feedback I got elswhere:
..Net is a programming system that Microsoft came up
with in 2001. It's sort of Microsoft's version of Java. Like
Java, software written in .Net needs a large collection of
support files, which Microsoft calls a "framework". (In Java
it's called a "virtual machine".) Without those files, the
software can't run.
Since 2001 there have been several versions of the
..Net system and therefore the .Net framework. They
are not all entirely compatible. So if you have any .Net
software installed you may need one or more of the
frameworks. You may not have any .Net software. It's
not very commonly used for standard "desktop" software.
It's used more for things like "web-based" software on
corporate intranets, again like Java. But there are a few
programs written in .Net for the desktop.
So, do you need the framworks? Maybe. Maybe not.
If you don't mind 100MB+ of possibly superfluous extra
stuff on your system then you can have all the frameworks
and not worry about it. If you want to have a lean system
for some reason, you can try uninstalling all frameworks
and then see if all of your software still works OK. The
sign that you are trying to run .Net software without the
required framework is that you see a message saying
something like, "mscoree.dll was not found".
My conclusion - "no I don't need it - unless I'm prompted for it"