Do I need all visual C++ runtimes installed or just the latest one

The question is in the title,

I know they are not taking up any significant ammount of space but I'm wondering if all these are needed, I'll send a snip just incase i'm the only one with lots, although i'm sure i've seen a similar number of these distributions on other systems.



Will the latest version be backward compatible with software trying to use the earlier librarys?

If removing I supose I should keep both the latest 32 and 64 bit versions.

My feeling is that removing run-times and shared dlls is perilous. I've been burned a couple of times uninstalling something that used the same ocx as DVD Flick. I got the "this library is no longer in use. You wanna' delete it?" Windows message. Clicked Yes, DVD Flick broken. I had to uninstall/install Flick to fix it. The detection of what's still being used by what and what ain't is less than perfect.

As the famous philosopher whose name I can't remember used to say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

edit: After all these years you'd think MS would change the default compile switch to link the code into the exe instead of leaving the hanging dll dependency. This has been going on since the 90s. We don't run 200 MB hard drives anymore where a few hundred kb of disk space is a big deal. It's just an embarrassment when you test your app on your PC and it works since the dlls are in the development install, then you give it to someone else and it craps out on load. Just another gotcha' somebody thinks is funny.

Do I recall VB6 allowing you to build your dll's into the exe? It's been such a long time! I was always too scared of C to even try it.

Thanks for clearing up the fact that 10 years later they still havent sorted the problem.... I can live with these then, I will just hide the entries in the uninstaller as that's the only place they bug me. (by hide I mean remove, I dont think hiding them is possible but let me know if I am wrong).

In VB you are better off with the run time. It's one big run time with the kitchen sink. The apps that hook into it can be made very small. With C++ the exe files are only a tad smaller at the cost of run time version explosion. The VB 6 run time didn't change every year.

The C++ language has changed quite a bit with lamda expressions, cooperative multitasking etc.. but the old compiler switch gotcha' hasn't changed. Just google "vc++ run time dll not found" and it's the same old story.

They are (in general) specific to features of that specific rev/version of a runtime, thus if a program needs a specific runtime version you will likely need to have it installed (not having a specific version installed can sometimes lead to errors with applications built with specific dependencies).