NET Framework 3.5 SP1 - Temporary Folder is not deleted
Installing .NET Redistributable 3.5 SP1 results in several temp folders remaining after Setup has completed. In addition you may receive an XPS XPSEPSC error indication that this component has not been installed.
Temporary Folder Issue: After pressing the 'Exit' button in the Setup window, you will be prompted to restart the PC. These temp folders (3) remain until you click on the 'Restart Now' button.
After rebooting one of the three folders is still present and is not deleted!
Note: These temporary folders are created on the drive or partition that contains the most free space. In my case this was my K: partition.
NET 3.5 SP1 The temporary folder name is a series of random letters and numbers but it always has readily identifiable subfolders: C:\c8b4800dc02b4bb681\amd64 C:\c8b4800dc02b4bb681\i386
There are 7 files in each subfolder all having the same set of names but the version numbers for the .dll file are not necessarily the same. At least some of these files are associated with the XPS (XPSEPSC) drivers.
A search for these files in on the drive or partition where Windows is installed shows that they are also found in the: C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder or subfolders C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386 folder.
The creation dates match the time when .NET 3.5 SP1 was installed. So the randomly named temporary folder can safely be deleted.
There is also a registry entry you can find if you enter the name of the temporary file in the Regedit 'Find' field: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\Windows XP\SP4\KB954550-v5\Filelist
KB954550-v5 For some reason Microsoft has no documents that I could find for this KB number and there is not much to find when searching the Internet either.
NET 3.0: I also installed and tested .NET 3.0 SP1 for a similar issue of an undeleted temporary folder. In this case the folder left behind after the install has complete only contains a log file. During a second series of tests this folder was not present.
Prerequisites for installing SP1 are as follows: NET Framework 2.0 NET Framework 2.0 SP1 NET Framework 3.0
NET Framework 3.0 SP1 - XPS XPSEPSC Not installed error: You may receive this error which is caused by the XML Paper Specifications Shared Components Pack 1.0 components in earlier versions of .NET not being installed.
I first received this error when testing the installation of .NET 3.0 on two separate occasions. The first time I fixed the problem by completely removing all the versions of .NET installed in reverse order (highest version first) and then reinstalling each version of .NET
When testing .NET for this article I again received the same error. This time instead of using the full redistributable I used the bootstrapper file, which in essence uses your Internet connection to download and install .NET. The logic being that during the install process your current installations of .NET would be scanned and any missing components would be included as part of the install process. Using the bootstapper worked as I did not get the XPS error and the installation completed successfully.