.net framework .NET Framework failure

[Spakes]

 

Does someone know methods of editing registry outside of windows or using non-Windows apps while in Windows?

Backstory: I screwed up, wanted to install AutoCAD, which didn't detect installed .NET 4.5. I decided to reinstall it since it helped earlier, but everything went wrong when I realized that Visual Studio 2017 installed .NET 4.7, wrote about it in registry, but not in distribution panel. And now I'm not able to do a thing,,, Neither uninstalling VS 2017 (it requires .NET 4.5 to do this), nor deleting a registry path that exists when .NET 4.5 is installed.

P. S. Reinstalling an OS is not an option since it's father's laptop (mine is coming soon unprepared, so i need a PC for university for a while), there are some programs, for which I do not have installers with me and process of finding them is a pain in the butt, plus I don't have a lot of free time for getting that thing to work properly...

Just need to delete one directory to make that thing running, that's all.

[aee]

Have you tried Linux live CDs like http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/ , which give you a few tools to access and work with NTFS file systems and also Windows-related tools? (I think there may be some tools there to work the the registry if I recall correctly).

 

You mentioned "Just need to delete one directory to make that thing running" - tools like System Rescue CD can definitely help you with deleting files on an NTFS partition without Windows running.

 

For your VS problems, have you tried the Visual Studio "TotalUninstall" tool from Microsoft? https://github.com/Microsoft/VisualStudioUninstaller This tool is meant to force remove installations of Visual Studio and all remnants of it. I had some weird issue where I had VS 2015 and 2017 installed and for some reason I couldn't uninstall 2015. This tool work for me, removing the unwanted version completely.

[Spakes]

I actually wanted to try Win 8.1 booted from USB drive to edit registry. Gonna try it tomorrow, if VSUninstaller won't work, now it's time for homework.

Should have made USB "System Rescue Drive" and a backup, but I'm an idiot in a rush.

Thank you a lot!

[aee]

No problem, hope it works out. I've never had much experience booting Windows from an external USB disk, but Linux always works without fail off of external USB disks or CDs. It's handy to keep a USB-bootable Linux installation around for times such as the ones you're describing, as they can get you access to your Windows files without a working Windows installation.