Putting the latest ASP.NET hotfixes on Vista SP1

Last year I blogged about what were, at the time, some recent ASP.NET hotfixes. Recently a customer I was working with needed this fix:

Error message and the hyperlink control is not rendered if the ImageUrl property is set in Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 after you install .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 or .NET Framework 3.5 SP1:"Object reference not set to an instance of an object"

Now, if you look at that article today (or at least at the time of writing this blog post!) it tells you that to get that fix you need to download this fix:

A hotfix is available for ASP.NET 2.0 that enables support for extended protection

Until recently, you could get the fix by installing this fix rollup:

Description of the hotfix rollup package for ASP.NET 2.0: April 2009

That article has also now been updated to point to the extended protection article.

The problem we faced was that KB969612 was not available for the Vista platform.

And the last ASP.NET hotfix package we shipped that targets the Vista SP1 platform was this one:

FIX: A hotfix is available to fix two problems in ASP.NET on IIS 7.0 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

But that one shipped before the fix my customer needed.

So what to do?

Turns out we can take advantage of something called dual branch servicing for the .NET Framework.

The solution for my customer’s Vista SP1 system doing this:

1) Install hotfix KB967535.

2) Install rollup update KB982532.

In fact, you don’t even have to do it in that order. Even if you install 967535 after you already have 982532 the patch technology is smart enough to switch you from the GDR branch to the LDR branch.

HTH

Doug