I install Miner Wars.
Steam forces .NET over top of my already up-to-date .NET
and overwrites all of the security updates.
Thus leaving me with a shit load of .NET updating to do all over again.

I think it's already been established that Steam's ingenious auto-installation of all prerequisities on first launch of any game utterly and horribly sucks.

Was it as bad as the DirectX installation that every game installer in existence ever foists upon you?

I haven't played Shogun 2: Total War for a good few months now cause of Steam's stupid updates.

Oh my god. Is that the reason the .NET optimization service was running after I installed a game today? Stupid thing brought my computer to a crawl. It's a bit odd to see that services created by Microsoft run so inefficiently.

SteamNET = SkyNET

The future is now.

Least that is possible on my computer. Cause of my internet, any large game that is Steam DRM will probably not be played for a while...

Microsoft and bloat? Unthinkable!

The issue isn't really with .NET itself, but with Steam overwriting existing .NET installs with older ones, often multiple copies of older ones. So the system has to re-update itself all at once every time Steam decides to be retarded. Under normal circumstances it's never even an issue.

Haha, I'm not denying that. I just think it odd that the creators of the system are some of the worst programmers on said system.Argh. Note to self: Set aside an extra hour for .NET to do its thing when installing .NET games through Steam.

They really need to come up with a better way for initial launch. Should not be too hard to write a program to check what u already have on your computer.

Ram and processors don't sell themselves. At least, Microsoft thinks they could use a little help, and if it lines their pockets as well, all the better. Their 2018 goal is to require 8GB of ram as a minimum for Windows 9. The new Minesweeper will require a quad-core processor and 2GB of video memory to achieve minimal settings at an acceptable framerate.

...hey, at least it's more efficient than The Precursors! XD

You can edit the game's install script to prevent it installing the dependencies (you can still run them manually if needed, of course). I think deleting the install script also works but I haven't tried either method myself.

Note that tasks like verifying the integrity of the game cache or exporting/importing the game files will probably replace the modified/deleted file with the original version.

The installers for .NET and the like normally handle this themselves, but Steam apparently uses switches that force the installer to replace the existing version. Interacting with the installers correctly would mean more work on Valve's part and they are notoriously lazy in regards to standards compliance.

You sure it wasn't a different runtime version of .NET? They're made to (mostly) run side by side. In such a case you got a version of .NET runtime you didn't have before and accordingly had to update it. That's hardly cause for complaint if that's the case.

I think it was 4.0 itself. Steam has done this before and I've forgotten that it does this. It's not often but every once in awhile they install a game that insists on reinstalling .NET again.

Had it been a store bought copy .NET would have prompted me first.