Determine NET Framework version for dll

Question

I have an old dll that was compiled against the  NET framework and deployed   I am not sure which version of the  NET framework it was compiled against   I am wondering how I can determine which version of the  NET framework this dll was compiled against   I cannot trust the source code because I believe it has been upgraded to Visual Studio 2008 and changed to  NET framework version 3 5

User · Answer

dotPeek is a great  free  tool to show this information   If you are having a few issues getting hold of Reflector then this is a good alternative

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The simplest way  just open the  dll in any text editor  Look at one of the last lines

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I quickly wrote this C  console app to do this   https   github com stuartjsmith binarydetailer  Simply pass a directory as a parameter and it will do its best to tell you the net framework for each dll and exe in there

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Use ILSpy http   ilspy net   open source  free  definitely an option since now reflector is paid

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If you have DotPeek from JetBrains  you can see it in Assembly Explorer

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In PowerShell you can use the following to get the target runtime    path    C  Some dll   Reflection Assembly   ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom  path  ImageRuntimeVersion   I adapted this to PowerShell from Ben Griswold s answer   If you want to know the target framework version specified in Visual Studio  use    path    C  Some dll   Reflection Assembly   ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom  path  CustomAttributes   Where-Object     AttributeType Name -eq  TargetFrameworkAttribute       Select-Object -ExpandProperty ConstructorArguments    Select-Object -ExpandProperty value   You should get something like       NETFramework Version v4 5 2

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You have a few options  To get it programmatically  from managed code  use Assembly ImageRuntimeVersion   Dim a As Assembly   Reflection Assembly ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom  C  path assembly dll   Dim s As String   a ImageRuntimeVersion   From the command line  starting in v2 0  ildasm exe will show it if you double-click on  MANIFEST  and look for  Metadata version   Determining an Image   s CLR Version

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Just simply  var tar    TargetFrameworkAttribute Assembly            LoadFrom  yoursAssembly dll              GetCustomAttributes typeof TargetFrameworkAttribute   First

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Load it into Reflector and see what it references   for example

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You can use ILDASM     ildasm exe C  foo dll  metadata  MDHEADER   text  noil   and check for the  Metadata section  in the output  It would be something like this      Metadata section  0x424a5342  version  1 1  extra  0  version len    12  version  v4 0 30319   The  version  tag will tell you the  NET Framework version  In the above example it is 4 0 30319

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Expanding on the answers here  this can blow up if there is a dependent assembly  If you re lucky and you know where the dependent is  or even luckier  it s in the GAC  then this may help      using System Reflection  using System Runtime Versioning               AppDomain CurrentDomain ReflectionOnlyAssemblyResolve    new ResolveEventHandler CurrentDomain ReflectionOnlyAssemblyResolve       var asm   System Reflection Assembly LoadFrom   C  Codez My dll        var targetFrameAttribute   asm GetCustomAttributes true  OfType lt TargetFrameworkAttribute gt    FirstOrDefault        targetFrameAttribute Dump       Assembly CurrentDomain ReflectionOnlyAssemblyResolve object sender  ResolveEventArgs args        var name   args Name       if  name StartsWith  Depends            return System Reflection Assembly ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom   C  Codez Depends dll         return System Reflection Assembly ReflectionOnlyLoad args Name       Reference  https   weblog west-wind com posts 2006 Dec 22 Reflection-on-Problem-Assemblies

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Detect It Easy  also known as DiE is a program for determining types of files  Works with  dll files or other   exe  files  Absolute free for commercial and non-commercial use

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Decompile it with ILDASM  and look at the version of mscorlib that is being referenced  should be pretty much right at the top

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Yet another option via Visual Studio  add a reference to the DLL to any project  then right-clicking on the new reference and click Properties  you can see what you are looking for in Runtime version

[.net] Determine .NET Framework version for dll

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