Asp.net-mvc – Is MVC4 baked into .NET 4.5

NuGet 2.1 offers a feature that makes this a lot simpler: just do update-package -reinstall -ignoreDependencies from the Package Manager Console.

NuGet 2.0 doesn't handle re-targeting your applications very well. In order to change your packages' target frameworks, you must uninstall and reinstall the packages (taking note of the packages you had installed so that you can reinstall each of them).

The reason packages must be uninstalled and reinstalled is:

• When installing a package, we determine the target framework of your project
• We then match that up with the package contents, finding the appropriate \lib\ folder (and \content\ folder)
• Assembly references are added with Hint Paths that point to the package's \lib\ folder, with the right subfolder (\lib\net40 for example)
• Content files are copied from the packages \content\ folder, with the right subfolder (\content\net40 for example)
• We record the targetFramework used to install the package within the packages.config file
• After you change your project's target framework, the Hint Paths still point to net40
• When you uninstall packages, we check the targetFramework that was recorded in packages.config to see what target framework's libs/content to remove from your project
• When you reinstall the package, we detect your updated target framework and reference/copy the right libs/content

Microsoft is adopting a new strategy with VS2012 in which they are componentizing more of the new features as packages that can be downloaded via nuget. For example, Entity Framework, MVC4, WebApi, Web Optimization, etc.. are all now packages rather than part of the framework.

The reason is that these systems can now be easily upgraded out of cycle with the rest of the framework. Thus, MVC5 can be easily released without waiting for .NET 5, and Web Optimization v2 can be released whenever it might be ready.