Share via

Why .NET Security Updates for x64 Windows Server includes many other packages including ones for Desktop systems and x86 systems

ComputerUser_88633 21 Reputation points
2021-03-12T19:18:32.903+00:00

Hello,

I'm curious how one is suppose to determine which of these packages in the update shown below is supposed to be installed when downloading from the MS Update Catalog? If you are running a Server OS (say 2016 Datacenter x64) and that server has some instance of .NET on it which was detected and determined to require the following primary update shown below in BOLD but when going to the MS Update Catalog to download this update you are greeted with 10 individual downloads as seen below. Some of these updates are x86 others are x64 and even beyond that we see windowsdesktop-runtime files as well.

If I look at a server prior to installing all these files included with the download it has none of these other packages installed but once the update shown in BOLD is applied that server now has all these updates installed that are seemingly not supposed to be there. I'm not sure why all this stuff is bundled into this .NET package with no indication or documentation on if you need to install all of them or not.

I see this for many of the .NET Security Updates that get released and its quite confusing.

Thanks for any details you can provide

2021-03 .NET 5.0.4 Security Update for x64 Server

windowsdesktop-runtime-5.0.4-win-x64_33fbcdb6b6f052fcc26b4ef850b81ed5f2c10b02.exe
dotnet-runtime-5.0.4-win-x86_511616a05c8fc6c640ced86c3bdbb212ad065df7.exe
dotnet-sdk-5.0.201-win-x64_7f4fd14ff752968b51ff1e88bfc4428b3866016a.exe
dotnet-sdk-5.0.104-win-x86_8073acbc45e5b74c55dc041d9f33adb4105eaa2f.exe
aspnetcore-runtime-5.0.4-win-x64_e4d6a31ef90bc66ae9488945e3141dec14450171.exe
dotnet-sdk-5.0.104-win-x64_3c1a670b38b3c8387c2bc20b59fd94d4ded88b5e.exe
dotnet-runtime-5.0.4-win-x64_5001d8670fae0790a64cf8948aab341306507f13.exe
windowsdesktop-runtime-5.0.4-win-x86_7f12d3f3712832f9022683024da9f463763db114.exe
aspnetcore-runtime-5.0.4-win-x86_43ffd81e2089813db1589523400d2dbfedf031ee.exe
dotnet-sdk-5.0.201-win-x86_3ecca7478893f8421410944131de84242e9513e8.exe

Entity Framework Core
Entity Framework Core
A lightweight, extensible, open-source, and cross-platform version of the Entity Framework data access technology.
741 questions
.NET Runtime
.NET Runtime
.NET: Microsoft Technologies based on the .NET software framework.Runtime: An environment required to run apps that aren't compiled to machine language.
1,161 questions

1 answer

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. abbodi86 3,891 Reputation points
    2021-03-16T06:23:32.12+00:00

    Its cald update bundle
    you see all bundled packages when you check MU catalog
    but on your OS, Windows Update is smart enough to only find and download the packages applicable to your OS (i.e. per packages you already have), it does not install anything new

    p.s. you see x86 .NET packages because they also can be installed on x64 OS

    0 comments

Your answer

Answers can be marked as Accepted Answers by the question author, which helps users to know the answer solved the author's problem.