[sterlind]

there's a weird licensing thing for the VC runtime where you can't redistribute the dll alongside your code unless you have a special license. instead, you have to install it as an MSI. I have no idea why they created that restriction. I even work for MS and it baffles me.

[londons_explore]

At one point MS was very keen for people to use MSI's rather than building custom installers that jam things into system32. Perhaps that was why.

[saagarjha]

I don’t usually bug people about this but you mean “MSIs”, not “MSI’s”. They mean different things in this context.

[Dylan16807]

But if you're using it for yourself you wouldn't want to put it in system32.

[chunkyks]

There was a looong period of time where a lot of developers felt entirely free to drop whatever they wanted into c:\Windows, System, System32, whatever. It's a big part of what led to windows getting a reputation for being poorly behaved/crashy/slow over time [leading to a lot of "have you tried reinstalling windows?" recommendations]

[Dylan16807]

Yes but I think that's separate from a newer installer using one of these newer runtimes.

[legalcorrection]

It’s so the system can update the runtime when security vulnerabilities and such are discovered.

[naikrovek]

probably so it gets a consistent installation location that is protected by the operating system. read the Raymond Chen blog post linked here a few times to see why not doing this has bitten Microsoft in the past.