HP said:
And what's more, when something does say it needs it I usually decide it's not important and that I can do without
Fine my me, but if it is some software that you DO NEED and it will not work without .net then you are up the creek.
My post was not to tell anyone that they need .net but to cover the posts by novices who ask why they have got it and do they need it or can they just uninstall all versions. Lots of software that need .net actually just point out during installation that they will download it and then procede, so in months to come you cannot remember which programs need it.
I have v 1.1 and also v2.0 because some software on my PC needs it to work, and as both versions take up 87 MB of space, then considerering removing them to save space is a futile exercises.