I came across this post in the SQL Server Slack chats and wanted to make sure that this information was shared so others don’t fall into this trap. Not having .NET 3.5 installed w/ SQL 2016 means no DB Mail and worse, no errors or alerts that it’s not working. I hope that MS will address this a bit more if they keep saying we don’t need .NET 3.5 for SQL 2016. In the meantime, if you want DB Mail, you’ll need the framework, too.