Installing SharePoint 2013 SP1 on Windows 2012 R2 (working around the .NET 4.5 restriction)

There was a purpose to the previous post, PowerShell: Determining the versions of .NET Installed on Windows. I have been tasked to install SharePoint 2013 SP1 on a Windows Server 2012 R2 machine. Unfortunately SharePoint 2013 SP1 has a well-known issue, it will not install if a version of .NET is installed on the machine that is greater than version 4.5.x. The error message generated by the SharePoint 2013 SP1 is as follows, This product requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5:

The work-around is to rollback the .NET Framework on the server on which SharePoint 2013 SP 1 will be installed. This is described below because as of July 3, 2020 it appears that the only way to install SharePoint 2013 SP1 on a machine where the version of .NET Framework is not greater than 4.5.x. The solution shown below is actually a post and a series of replies from (techcommunity.microsoft.com) Need "svrsetup_15-0-4709-1000_x64.zip" for SharePoint Server 2013 (KB3087184). The final reply is my solution to the issue.

Microsoft has documented the "greater than .NET Framework 4.5 error" and has proposed solutions such as Setup error if the .NET Framework 4.6 is installed. In the aforementioned article Microsoft points administrators to a magic Knowledge Base article (KB2880552), Service Pack 1 for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (KB2880552). From this magic Knowledge Base article is a magic link to magic page where a magic zip file can be downloaded. This magic zip file contains a magic DLL that can be added to the SharePoint 2013 SP1 files extracted from the installation media. Depending on the SharePoint product being installed the DLL's supposedly available are as follows:

• SharePoint Foundation 2013 with Service Pack 1: wsssetup.dll
• SharePoint Server 2013 with Service Pack 1: svrsetup.dll
• Project Server 2013 with Service Pack 1: svrsetup.dll

The link to KB2880552 no longer contains a zip file and there there are no magic DLLs that allow SharePoint 2013 to be installed on a machine containing .NET Framework 4.6.x, 4.7.x or 4.8.x.

Shown at the very bottom of this post is the solution demonstrating the steps to rollback to .NET Framework 4.5.x, install SharePoint 2013 SP1, and restore the previous .NET Framework or .NET Frameworks that had been installed.