I recently went to install all the current Visual C++ redistributable packages (2005 - 2017) and discovered that Microsoft has pulled the updates for 2012 and 2013 from its site:
Visual C++ 2012: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679
Visual C++ 2013: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784
Then I went to install the Visual C++ 2015 redistributable and encountered an install error that says, "Another version of this product is already installed." I opened the log file and it reads, "cannot install a product when a newer version is installed."
I understand that some apps may be very specific to bind to the exact version of Visual C++ dlls (eg. 2005, 2008, etc). However, it appears that Microsoft has replaced at least two previous versions in favor of the latest one.
My question is, do we only need to install 2005, 2008, 2010 and the latest version from now on? Or do we only need to install the latest version by itself? Thank you.