Visual Studio 2010 error: “Project Target Framework Not Installed” when opening a .NET 4.0 project

Question

I am experiencing a rather disconcerting issue with one of my development machines that I hope someone can advise me on.

I have a large Visual Studio 2010 VB solutio

Answer 1

Your VS solution may have a project (or more) in it that reference something in the full .NET 4.0 profile, which you are likely to have on your development machines... except perhaps the one where you are having the problem. The .NET 4.0 Client Profile is definitely different, and doesn't support everything you might be needing.

Solutions that involve fully re-installing Visual Studio work because VS installs the full .NET profile, not the client profile.

Answer 2

I solved this issue for myself by downloading the appropriate Developer targeting pack. I made the mistake of trying to download the Runtime one, which apparently does not include the Visual Basic plug-in that you need.

I am using .NET Framework 4.5.1, and this is the link to the page I downloaded from:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5a4x27ek%28v=vs.110%29.aspx

Answer 3

I had the same issue. My pc has the windows in a small SSD drive and user profiles and both Program Files folders on another disk. I solved it by noticing that even I had changed the registry entries about Program Files folders location, the FW setup had still put some files on the default locstion. I copyed them to the right location and at last I have FW 4.0 again on the target frameworks

Answer 4

I managed to resolve the issue by replacing the development machine with a new one. Not quite a resolution to the problem but it saved a lot of time uninstalling/reinstalling/repairing over and over again.

Answer 5

update or reinstall the framework in question. run visual studio setup. click restore to defaults. will find all installed frameworks and not modify or remove plugins or liscenses. Even kept my settings.

Answer 6

Thank you Aris!

I was wondering why my VS 2010 stopped recognizing the .Net4.0 suddenly, until I came across your post above.

I was working on a vbs script which was suppose to refer to %PROGRAMFILES% system variable, and was annoyed that no matter which one used (64bit or the (x86)) I was getting to the Program Files (x86) folder. So I found that the registry entry ProgramFilesDir and ProgramFilesDir (x86) under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

have the same value ("Program Files (x86)"), so intuitively change the non x86 value properly. And that is what messed up my VS 2010 instance. Rolled that setting back and now VS is fine, left with the vbs issue though ;)

I hope that helps anybody.