.NET 3.0 and 3.5 Die April 12, 2011, Upgrade to .NET 4.0 or 3.5 SP1

Microsoft will kill support for both .NET Framework 3.0 and .NET framework 3.5 on April 12, 2010, which leaves customers with less than a year to upgrade. Microsoft’s strong recommendation is that all migration processes be completed by April 12th, next year, with two options available, either .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 or the freshly released .NET Framework 4.0 RTM. “We are ending support for earlier iterations of .NET 3.0 and 3.5—but are giving customers a year to migrate before ending support. We will require all customers to be on .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 or later, by April 12th, 2011 in order to obtain security updates or support,” Microsoft’s David Carrington revealed.

At the same time, the decision to cut off support for .NET 3.0 and 3.5 on April 12, 2011 is part of a company move designed to overhaul how .NET Framework is supported. Essentially, the .NET Framework will no longer be treated as a standalone major product in terms of support, but instead it will become intimately connected with the Windows operating system. Of course, this is valid for versions 3.5 SP1, 4.0 and the successor of .NET Framework 4.0 going forward.

“With the passage of time, .NET has become a more integral part of the Windows operating system in terms of how it is supported and serviced and we’ve found that most customers take these updates in the course of keeping their products current. This servicing story led to some customer confusion and we recognized a need to provide greater clarity around the Support Lifecycle of the .NET Framework,” Carrington added. “To simplify this, we took the step of making .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1, and later versions, Components of the Windows operating system.”

Customers leveraging .NET 3.5 SP1, .NET 4.0 RTM and later will benefit from support as long as the underlining Windows operating system is supported. With this move, Microsoft has made .NET a Windows component, and, as such, it will share the same Support Lifecycle as the parent product. Just think of Windows and Internet Explorer to get an idea of what it will happen.

In the past, “When the .NET Framework was released in 2002, it was considered a major product in its own right. As such, it took the usual five years of Mainstream Support and five years of Extended Support. This is commonly known as the 5+5 policy,” Carrington said. 

 .NET Framework 4 RTM is available for download here.

The RTM edition of .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released in August 2008 and is available for download here.

Here are the links for the .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update for Windows Vista x86, and Windows Server 2008 x86

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update for Windows Vista x64, and Windows Server 2008 x64

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update for Windows Server 2008 IA64