OK bear with me, there's a few questions here. Lets start here, the other day I got this email from Microsoft:
On August 7, 2014, Microsoft announced that support will end for .NET Framework 4, 4.5, and 4.5.1 on January 12, 2016. It is recommended that customers and developers complete the in-place update to .NET Framework 4.5.2 by January 12, 2016 to continue receiving technical support and security updates. Visit Microsoft .NET Framework Support Lifecycle Policy for more details.
On October 27, we announced that, Azure will update the .NET Framework in Windows Azure Guest operating system (Guest OS) family 2.x, 3.x and 4.x to .NET Framework 4.5.2 in the upcoming November Guest OS Release. Since then, we have received customers’ feedback to postpone the automatic update to an OS release with .NET 4.5.2 and provide an image with .NET 4.5.2 for test validation.
To better accommodate customers’ requirements and provide a smooth upgrade to .NET 4.5.2, Azure will update the .NET Framework in Windows Azure Guest operating system (Guest OS) family 2.x, 3.x and 4.x to .NET Framework 4.5.2 in the January 2016 Guest OS Release. Cloud services running on Guest OS family 2.x, 3.x and 4.x with automatic updates enabled will be updated to the January 2016 Guest OS with .NET Framework 4.5.2. In November, the .NET Framework installed in the default OS will not be changed. In order to help customers validate their cloud service with .NET 4.5.2, Azure will provide a second set of November OS Versions 201511-02 for with .NET 4.5.2 for manual deployment
So Im "the web guy" at where I work, and I'm trying to make sense of this email.
First, what is a Guest OS? How could it affect me?
Secondly, in Azure we have some web apps and cloud services, meaning we don't maintain the underlying OS, we just publish code and all is magically delicious. My "guess" here is that Microsoft is telling me that my apps can no longer target .NET Framework 4.5.0, I now must target 4.5.2 at a minimum. Is that accurate, or does this perhaps not touch my "web apps and cloud services"?
Best Answer
Azure Guest OS family
What I got from that email is that you can still use older version of .NET framework but you won't get any support if you encounter any problem. So, does it affect you? I think not directly because it won't make you apps stop working or something like that.
It is better to always upgrade your system but it's all up to you