The UPDATE: .NET 3.5 SP1 fixlet has the last relevance (6) worked in such a way that will install it in all computers that dont have it installed already. Previous .NET patches would only install if that .NET version was installed on the machine. The current relevance is:
color=red
NOT
[/color] exists key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5” whose (exists value “SP” whose (it >= 1) of it) of registry
[/color] exists value “SP” whose (it >= 1) of it) of registry
This is to be consistent with the other fixlets and only do the install if .NET 3.5 is present. Because of this “little” difference I patched a good amount of computers with 3.5 and since it also installs 2.0 and 3.0 if they are not installed… The result was that an application that breaks if any version other than 1.1 SP1 is installed on the machine is giving the local ServiceDesk people a lot of extra work to fix it, manually, on a per ticket basis and they are asking why they have to do that. Now that I figured out the problem I have made a custom copy with the above change and I will try to fix it but I wanted to ask Why was it done that way and no one seems to mind?
Our apologies for the inconvenience that you have experienced.
The Fixlet in question contains a note reading “Important Note: If the previous versions of the .NET Framework listed above are not installed, they will be installed upon deployment of .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.” It was our intention through this note to communicate that the Fixlet deploys .NET rather than upgrading it, but it does seem rather ambiguous in retrospect.
That said, I agree that this Fixlet, being a service pack release, should only apply to systems which already have .NET 3.5 Gold installed, and so I’ve modified it to reflect your more restrictive relevance and removed the previously mentioned note. We will be publishing this new version shortly.
Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for pointing out the lack of clarity.
Just to clarify though, .Net 3.5 SP1 will install the other two if they are not installed even if you download it off Microsoft (which of course, it’s what fixlets do anyways :)), so I was aware of that. My only issue was that it would install it even if the previous version was not installed, as opposed to upgrading it, like the other SPs did. Again thank you for fixing it so quickly, then again like you say it wasn’t really broken just a different type of SP update.
None of our PCs have completed the installation Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. They are either still evaluating, after more than two months, or waiting for a dependency. All have the following items installed, which includes .NET Framework 3.5.
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 1.1.4322
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Hotfix (KB928366)
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 2.1.21022
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 3.1.21022
Generally, the states that you describe are related to other issues and not necessarily the patches themselves.
If you try to apply the Fixlet again (probably start with a single Fixlet and then try multiple at a time a bit later) to a handful of the machines, do they work or do they still get “stuck” at “evaluating”?