Totally confused with VS 2017-2019 Installation

[Slava Lishnevsky]

Hi,

I am a .NET Developer, I have spoken with dozens of developers and no one can answer these questions:

When I get an installation screen with so called workloads, I selected [.NET desktop development ] and on the right side it shows that these "things" will be installed:

• .NET desktop development tools
• .NET Framework 4.7.2 development tools
• C# and Visual Basic

Under Optional:

these components are checked

• .NET Framework 4 – 4.6 development tools - checked
• Blend for Visual Studio - checked
• Entity Framework 6 tools - checked
• .NET profiling tools - checked
• Just-In-Time debugger - checked
• Live Share - checked
• IntelliCode - checked

and these are not checked

• F# desktop language support
• PreEmptive Protection - Dotfuscator
• .NET Core 2.2 development tools
• .NET Core 2.1 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.6.1 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.6.2 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.7 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.7.1 development tools
• .NET Portable Library targeting pack
• Windows Communication Foundation
• SQL Server Express 2016 LocalDB

What I don't understand is mostly - these:

• .NET Framework 4.6.1 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.6.2 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.7 development tools
• .NET Framework 4.7.1 development tools

Do I need to check them to install or not?

The installer shows that only this is installed

• .NET Framework 4.7.2 development tools

and this as optional

• .NET Framework 4 – 4.6 development tools

Questions:

1. Why have they decided to include 4.7.2 and 4 - 4.6, but exclude 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7 and 4.7.1?
2. What is "development tools", no one can answer this question.
3. Since 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7 and 4.7.1 are not checked I would assume that these frameworks will not be installed, so I will not be able to develop app for 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7 and 4.7.1. Then how come I have an option to choose these frameworks when creating a new project, see the screenshot - I see 4.6.1 (which I did not select), but I dont see 4.7, which I also did not select, I am totally confused.
4. Also, what is so special about 4.6.1 (that they decided to install, although it was not checked) vs 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1 that they decided not to install? And if these are not installed, back to my previous question - how come I can selected these versions when creating a new project ???
5. And one more - I did not select "SQL Server Express 2016 LocalDB", how come I see it installed in Add/Remove Programs ???

For unknown reason this site doesn't let me to add screenshots -

• Body text cannot contain images or links until we are able to verify your account.

What the hell, what does that mean, why do I get this red text message after I composed a question?

It feels like back to the 90x. Giant software monster Microsoft in 21st century lol ;(

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