Problems With My MS .Net Framework 2.0 Setup

The MS .Net Framework 2.0 library on my PC got corrupted a few days ago. I am not sure what went wrong. I did suffer an NTFS file system corruption on the Windows system C: drive before that though. What caused this? I do not know. This is something that I have been trying to nail down since 2013, without much success unfortunately. My previous suspicion was with my anti-virus software Avira, but after uninstalling it (and replacing it with Avast) the problem is still there.

Symptoms

These are the symptoms that I encountered after the .Net Framework 2.0 got corrupted:

• My VirtualDub scheduler, V2CRS, does not launch anymore. Instead a pop-up message saying that "mscorwks.dll could not be loaded" (or something similar; can't remember the exact words) greeted me.

• I keep getting a pop-up error message saying that "Reader_sl.exe: Application failed to initialize properly (0xc0150004)" every time when I boot-up Windows.

• None of the MS Office 2007 applications (Excel and Word in particular) work anymore. They just fail to start.

A Possible Fix

I could have just restored from my most recent backup to fix this problem. But then I would have to reinstall Avast (and uninstall Avira) again. No. Not more work for me if, I could help it. I'll keep that as a last resort for now.

Searching on Google I came across a possible fix from the techguy forum. The proposed fix is a little too extreme, I think. But it did get V2CRS, Excel and Word working again; although now I have different error messages popping up in my Windows Event Viewer.

In a nutshell, this is what was suggested:

1. Delete the Policies folder under C:\Windows\WinSxS.

2. Downloaded MS Framework 2.0, dotnetfx.exe.

3. Launch dotnetfx.exe and choose 'Repair'.

Step 1. is a little too drastic I think. Or maybe it's because I did not follow the instruction exactly: I deleted all folders within C:\Windows\WinSxS\Policies rather than just deleting the Policies folder itself.

I have now restored all folders from backup in C:\Windows\WinSxS\Policies, except for x86_policy.8.0.Microsoft.VC80.CRT_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_x-ww_77c24773 as otherwise I will be back in square one -I wish I know why. Those errors that I mentioned above in the Windows Event Viewer disappeared ... all except for this regrettably:

I wonder if this has anything to do with this earlier entry in the Windows Event Viewer. Well it started appearing almost immediately after this entry:

Poking around, I noticed that my C:Windows\assembly directory structure is now very much different from what I have in my backup. Mmmm... Should I just restore from my last good backup, uninstall Avira and reinstall Avast again and save me all this headache? Something must have got messed up real bad somewhere.

Note to self: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.

Update (31st March 2017) I did a restore from backup in the end, on 21st March 2017, and I have had trouble free .Net Framework on my PC ever since. Looking back, I think the trouble started when I did a 'Repair' to my .Net Framework. My guess is that it would have worked if I had the original setup file for .Net Framework version 2.0, which I don't. The one that I downloaded could be newer, with all the service packs included. Yes - incompatible versions, the source of all problems. I did thought about deleting the pending jobs in the job queue, like what one would find in print jobs. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the command after doing much Google searches.