Helping to test .NET 4 Beta 2 on Windows Update (WU)

The .NET Framework Setup team have a favour to ask, Scott Hanselman has a post with lots of details (and some nice screenshots) about how to help test the Windows Update for .NET 4 Beta 2, so I won’t repeat them here – I’m just helping to spread the word.

However, so this post has slightly more substance than a link to someone else’s post, this is what you need to do if you want to test the WU install and help make the process run smoothly in future. I have installed this on my home and work computers and no problems!

This is copied from the post mentioned above

The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 is up on Windows Update for a while for testing, IF you set this special registry key to "opt-in" for the test. Otherwise it won't get offered to you.

If you have a machine that doesn't have any .NET 4 bits on it, make a text file on your system with a name like "NETFX4.reg" and put this text in it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4B2WU]
"OptIn"=dword:00000001

Then double-click this new registry file to create the key. Then check Windows Update and install the .NET 4 Beta 2 Client Profile. You can also do this key manually if you like.

Don't worry, later in the year when .NET 4 is released, it'll install over the top of your installation and upgrade it. We'd like to get several thousand more WU-based installations in the next few days, so please try this out on any machines, VMs, or other machines you have lying around.