Preventing duplicate installs of Visual c++ Redistributable

[Alice1146]

Is there a way to prevent duplicate versions of Visual c++ Redistributable from being installed? As is, I frequently end up with 3+ copies of the same version installed at once. Normally this isn't a problem, as I can reduce them down to just the x86 and x64 pair for each version, but when I have to reinstall them for some reason, uninstalling them takes forever.

 

[hang-the-9]

Are you sure they are the same version? I have two C++ 2005 Redistrubutable but one is version 8.0.61xxxx the other is 8.0.56xxxxx

 

[elbert]

You should have several MFC c++ Redistributable library both x86 and x64 depending on software installed. These are different version library's of code that in some ways are like the different dX versions. Got to have each or some programs will fail. My guess is windows update is downloading them when you start a program that requires a given subset of a library.