Upgrade to 3.5 SP1 & 3.5 Family Update on client systems can break my code?

Question

I have a server hosting a remoting application using .NET 3.5. It has been running fine. In the last couple of days I have had numerous reports of users not being able to access the application after running the "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update (KB951847) x86" update.

I am tempted to run this update on the server - but don't want to cause any problems with my users that have not run this Windows Update.

I can update my application, but I see from other questions on SO that this shouldn't be an issue - as my dev machine does not have SP1 on it, so the app is not using anything that is dependent on SP1.

Any thoughts on what might be happening?

Answer 1

Purely coincidental, but I haven't noticed any issues with SP1. As noted, it's an 'additive' release, which means that it shouldn't break any 3.5 or 2.0 code. Just on general principal, though, I would recommend testing on your pc or a development server first...

Answer 2

It may be a coincidence - but several users had errors with our application following this Windows Update. Our app is a click-once distributed app. The app would not update, nor could it be removed from the system with the control panel.

Microsoft recommended deleting the 2.0 folder in the Local Settings\Apps folder

on XP it is usually: user/appdata/local/Apps/2.0 on Vista it is usually: user/appdata/local/Apps/2.0

This worked for all of our users that experienced this problem. I hope this might save someone else a huge waste of time!