Is .net 4.5 a major upgrade to 4.0 or is it just a matter of including updating .dll? [closed]

Question

If my server is currently setup with .net 4.0, is 4.5 a major release or is it something like .net mvc where I just have to include the mvc related dll's in my /bin folder?

Answer 1

.NET 4.5 must be installed on the server. It is not simply a .dll to include. You do have to specify 4.5 in your web.config to use 4.5 features. You only have to include the dlls for packages you use that use the 4.5 framework. I recommend using NuGet package manager to handle this so you don't have to do it manually.

However, in IIS, 4.5 does not appear as a .NET version for application pools and uses the 4.0 runtime. In that sense, it is similar to 3.5 where you need to set your app pool to version 2.0.