有时，当您在Windows(Windows)中安装应用程序时，可能会要求您安装一个名为Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 的附加应用程序。有一天，在查看已安装的应用程序时，您会注意到该程序已安装了很多次。每次安装都有不同的尺寸和安装日期。
什么是Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable？为什么安装了这么多副本，您可以卸载其中的任何一个吗？这里有很多事情要做，所以我们将从基础开始。
什么是Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable？
在我们进入解释的 C++ 部分之前，有必要先谈谈“可再发行”的含义。
软件(Software)以轻量级在线安装程序或可再分发的形式分发。在线安装程序的大小非常小，这是因为它们实际上并不包含应用程序数据。当你运行它们时，数据是从互联网上下载的。这种方法的优点是只下载您的特定计算机实际需要的数据。
另一方面，可再发行文件包含安装期间可能需要的所有数据。它具有不需要互联网连接即可工作的明显优势。可再发行组件通常捆绑到依赖它们的其他软件中，VIsual C++ 也是如此。
Visual C++ 是 C 编程语言家族的代码编译器。这包括 C、C++ 和C++/CLI代码。许多用 C 语言编写的应用程序，尤其是那些使用Microsoft Visual Studio开发环境创建的应用程序，都依赖于一组标准的软件库，没有这些软件库就无法运行。
但是，由于大多数将使用该应用程序的人不会在他们的计算机上安装整个Visual Studio 开发人员套件(Visual Studio developer suite)，因此可再发行组件包含给定应用程序所需的那些库，并且可以与其安装程序捆绑在一起。
什么是软件库？
因此，我们确定 C++ 可再发行组件是与使用Microsoft Visual C++ Studio编写的应用程序捆绑在一起的软件库。那么什么是软件库？
应用程序中有许多常用的函数和操作，使用频率很高，程序员每次都手动编写代码是没有意义的。软件(Software)库本质上是一组预制的编程代码，软件开发人员可以在他们自己的代码中调用这些代码来完成特定的工作。这可以节省时间并有助于标准化软件开发的各个方面。
有问题的软件库属于Microsoft，因此开发人员不能简单地将代码复制并粘贴到自己的程序中。可再发行组件允许程序调用它在用户计算机上所需的库。
为什么 Redistributable重复了这么多次(Repeated So Many Times)？
如果您密切注意，您会注意到不同的 C++ 可再发行安装的名称并不完全相同。他们的标题中会有不同的版本号和不同的年份。
这是因为Microsoft Visual Studio本身也在不断更新。这也会影响每个版本中的标准软件库。使用特定版本的Visual Studio编写的应用程序需要该版本的开发工具的可再发行库。
可再发行产品也不是累积的。所以较新的不包含以前版本的所有库。这是因为一些较旧的库会随着时间的推移而被删除，或者会发生变化并且不再与旧版本兼容。如果它们是累积的，那么可再分配的大小将随着时间的推移而膨胀并且变得难以维护。
每当您安装需要新可分发的新应用程序时，它都会检查该库是否已安装。如果没有，它会被添加到列表中。因此，您看到列出的每一个条目都曾经是您安装在计算机上的应用程序所需要的。
我应该删除其中的任何一个吗？
可再发行库是共享的。这意味着多个应用程序使用相同的标准库安装。尽管程序会同时安装缺少的库，但在您卸载它时它不会卸载这些库。那是因为可能同时安装了另一个程序，该程序也依赖于这些特定的库。
我们不建议您删除任何Visual C++可再发行组件，因为这样做可能会使您计算机上的多个应用程序停止工作。考虑到(Given)它们占用的空间很小以及它们的使用范围有多大，似乎不值得麻烦您当前的标准库文件生态系统。
找出您需要哪些可再发行产品(Which Redistributables)
如果出于争论的原因，您绝对要删除计算机上任何软件不再使用的Visual C++没有自动化的方法来确定您的计算机上存在哪些 C++ 库依赖项。
一种方法是卸载所有可再发行组件，然后重新安装您知道自己需要的软件。然后这些应用程序将重新安装它们所需的库。您也可以通过全新安装Windows(Windows)并仅安装必要的应用程序来实现相同的效果。
这两种方法都涉及大量乏味的工作而收效甚微，但如果你必须这样做，那就是如何去做。
不要为Visual C++ Redistributables Redistributables失眠(Lose Sleep)
在这个多 TB 硬盘驱动器、许多 GB内存(RAM)和多核CPU(CPUs)的现代时代，在您的计算机上拥有一些多余的 C++ 库将对您的计算机性能或健康产生完全零影响。随意移除它们可能会破坏事物并系统地移除它们是一项艰苦的工作，几乎没有回报。所以深吸一口气，关闭应用程序列表，然后忘记它们的存在。
What Is Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable & Do You Need So Many?
Sometimes when you install an application in Windows, yoυ might be asked to install an аdditional applicatiоn called Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. One day when looking through your installed applications, you notice that this program is installed many times. Each installation is a different size and installation date.
What is the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable? Why are there so many copies installed, and can you uninstall any of them? There’s a lot to go through here, so we’ll start with the basics.
What Is the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable?
Before we get to the C++ part of the explanation, it’s worth talking about what “redistributable” means.
Software is distributed as either a lightweight online installer or as a redistributable. Online installers are very small in size and that’s because they don’t actually contain the application data. When you run them, the data is downloaded from the internet. The advantage of this approach is that only the data your particular computer actually needs will be downloaded.
A redistributable file, on the other hand, has all the data that could possibly be needed during the installation. It has the distinct advantage of not needing an internet connection to work. Redistributables are often bundled into other software that rely on them and so it is with VIsual C++.
Visual C++ is a code compiler for the C programming language family. That includes C, C++ and C++/CLI code. Many applications written in C, especially those created using the Microsoft Visual Studio developer environment, rely on a standard set of software libraries, without which the software can’t run.
However, since most people who’ll be using the application aren’t going to have the entire Visual Studio developer suite installed on their computer, the redistributable contains those libraries that a given application needs and can be bundled along with its installer.
What Are Software Libraries?
So we’ve established that the C++ redistributables are software libraries that are bundled with applications written using Microsoft Visual C++ Studio. So what are software libraries?
There are many common functions and operations in applications that are used so often it doesn’t make sense for programmers to hand-code them every time. Software libraries are essentially a collection of pre-made programming code that a software developer can call up in their own code to do specific jobs. This saves time and helps standardize aspects of software developments.
The software libraries in question belong to Microsoft, so the developer can’t simply copy and paste the code into their own program. The redistributable allows the program to call on the libraries it needs on the user’s computer.
Why Is the Redistributable Repeated So Many Times?
If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that the different C++ redistributable installations don’t have exactly the same name. They’ll have different version numbers and different years in their titles.
That’s because Microsoft Visual Studio is itself being updated over time. This also affects the standard software libraries in each version. An application written using a specific version of Visual Studio would need the library redistributable of that version of the developer tools.
The redistributables are also not cumulative. So newer ones don’t contain all the libraries of the versions that have come before. That’s because some older libraries will be dropped over time or will change and no longer be compatible with older versions. If they were cumulative the size of the redistributable would balloon over the years and become hard to maintain.
Whenever you install a new application which requires a new distributable, it will check if that library is already installed. If not, it gets added to the list. So every one of the entries you see listed were at one time needed by an application you installed on your computer.
Should I Delete Any of Them?
The redistributable libraries are shared. That means multiple applications make use of the same installation of standard libraries. Although a program will install missing libraries alongside itself, it won’t uninstall those libraries when you uninstall it. That’s because another program may have been installed in the meantime that also relies on those specific libraries.
We don’t recommend that you delete any Visual C++ redistributable, because doing so could make multiple applications on your computer stop working. Given how little space they take up and how broadly they are used, it doesn’t seem worth the hassle to mess with your current ecosystem of standard library files.
Figuring Out Which Redistributables You Need
If, for argument’s sake, you were absolutely set on removing Visual C++ redistributables that are no longer used by any software on your computer, how would you do it? There’s no automated way to determine what C++ library dependencies exist on your computer.
One approach could be to uninstall all of the redistributables and then reinstall the software that you know you need. These applications will then reinstall their required libraries. You could also achieve the same effect with a clean installation of Windows and only your necessary applications.
Both of these approaches involve a lot of tedious work for very little gain, but if you must that’s how to go about it.
Don’t Lose Sleep About Visual C++ Redistributables
In this modern age of multi-terabyte hard drives, many gigabytes of RAM and multi-core CPUs, having a few superfluous C++ libraries on your computer will have exactly zero effect on your computer’s performance or wellbeing. Removing them willy-nilly can break things and removing them systematically is hard work with little reward. So take a deep breath, close that list of apps and forget they’re there.
