Why is Steam installing Direct X and Microsoft .NET Framwork

Post » Wed May 16, 2012 3:20 am

? Thank you.
User avatar
Julie Ann
 
Posts: 3383
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:17 am

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 9:57 pm

Every Steam game does this. Every game uses a slightly different package of DirectX and .NET so it needs to install the little pieces you may be missing for that game. It doesn't do an entire install.
User avatar
Laurenn Doylee
 
Posts: 3427
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:48 am

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 8:50 pm

? Thank you.

Steam almost always do that with new games.
User avatar
lolli
 
Posts: 3485
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2007 10:42 am

Post » Wed May 16, 2012 12:05 am

And are we sure steam install the right things ?
User avatar
Shirley BEltran
 
Posts: 3450
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 4:14 pm

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 5:20 pm

If you already have them, then it doesn't download it. It is simply checking your computer for .NET components.
User avatar
Jah Allen
 
Posts: 3444
Joined: Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:09 am

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 2:53 pm

Every Steam game does this. Every game uses a slightly different package of DirectX and .NET so it needs to install the little pieces you may be missing for that game. It doesn't do an entire install.

Thank you my friend. Appreciate the reply and fortunately the game is running flawlessly and detected my hardware perfectly. With specs below default game is "High" and it looks and runs beautifully.

OS: Vista 64
CPU: E8400 @3.0 Dual Core
RAM: 4gigs
GPU: Nividial 470 GTX
HD: WD Velociraptor
Sound: Creative Labs Champion X-Fi
Monitor: Samsung 245T 24" 1920 x 1200 Native
Mouse: Razor Naga
Klipsch 5.1 Surround Sound (Works perfectly !!! )

Cheers -Terrapin
User avatar
Jessica Nash
 
Posts: 3424
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2006 10:18 pm

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 1:17 pm

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/03/why-steam-makes-you-install-directx-repeatedly/
User avatar
Skrapp Stephens
 
Posts: 3350
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:04 am

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 3:25 pm

First off, this is a Steam peculiarity in particular. I'm not sure how much this still happens on disc-based games.

My computer has had DirectX, .Net, etc. installed about 300 times. It actually adds up to a noticeable amount of wasted time.

Ten years ago, programmers knew how to check if something was installed before installing it again, but, like the secret of Greek Fire, this knowledge has been lost to time.

I am not 100% sure but as far as I can tell these are all just MS' packages, not custom code from game makers. They're supposed to install their code with the game, not adding to or replacing the stnadard DX stuff that MS produces.

The DX installation dir is not gigantic after 300 installs, so I'm thinking it's just the same package over and over.
User avatar
Lisha Boo
 
Posts: 3378
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:56 pm

Post » Wed May 16, 2012 3:27 am

...Ten years ago, programmers knew how to check if something was installed before installing it again, but, like the secret of Greek Fire, this knowledge has been lost to time....

Ah the lost art of checking the registry.
No doubt they hide them in hard to find obscure places like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework
I mean, who would think of looking there...

Yes the .NET installers will check and reinstall, so why should they bother doing a 1 second registy check before wasting 10 mins of the customers time downloading and running a .NET install that they don't actually need?
User avatar
LADONA
 
Posts: 3290
Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2007 3:52 am

Post » Tue May 15, 2012 4:18 pm

Don't worry, it will not downgrade you, it will only upgrade you if needed. If you have DX-11 you will still have DX-11 when it is done,. Just run DXDIAG in the run window and you will see,
User avatar
Sxc-Mary
 
Posts: 3536
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:53 pm


Return to V - Skyrim