How to determine if .NET Core is installed

Question

I know that for older versions of .NET, you can determine if a given version is installed by following

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/318785  


        

Answer 1

It's possible that .NET Core is installed but not added to the PATH variable for your operating system or user profile. Running the dotnet commands may not work. As an alternative, you can check that the .NET Core install folders exist.

It's installed to a standard folder if you didn't change it during the instillation

• dotnet executable C:\program files\dotnet\dotnet.exe

• .NET SDK C:\program files\dotnet\sdk\{version}\

• .NET Runtime C:\program files\dotnet\shared\{runtime-type}\{version}\

For more details check How to check that .NET Core is already installed page at .NET documentation

Answer 2

Alternatively you can just look inside

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk

Answer 3

The correct answer for runtime-only environments without the SDK, such as a server with the Windows Hosting package installed, is to run PowerShell with the following command:

dotnet --info

Per the official documentation:

• The --version option "Prints out the version of the .NET Core SDK in use." and therefore doesn't work if the SDK is not installed. Whereas...
• The --info option "Prints out detailed information about the CLI tooling and the environment, such as the current operating system, commit SHA for the version, and other information."

Here's another official article explaining how .NET Core versioning works. :)

Answer 4

One of the dummies ways to determine if .NET Core is installed on Windows is:

• Press Windows + R
• Type cmd
• On the command prompt, type dotnet --version

If the .NET Core is installed, we should not get any error in the above steps.