How to fix VS2019 msbuild.exe cannot locate .net framework v4.6 installed on windows 2019 standard OS.

Question

How to fix VS2019 msbuild.exe cannot locate .net framework v4.6 installed on windows 2019 standard OS.

Raju, Ilaiyaraja 0

We are setting new jenkins agent which builds .netframework apps using visual studio 2019 build tools. actually the current server is working fine but its server OS(windows 2012 OS) is moving out of support,hence we are replacing old server with new windows 2019 standard server.

Now we are trying to replicate same visull studio 2019 build tools installation on new windows 2019 server. installation went successful but after installation I'm facing below issues.

Server Manager was not able to start and throwing .net framework 4.0.3019 is missing error. ==> this has been fixed by export working registry key value from old server to new server .I got this fix from microsoft community blog only.
Now I'm not able to open "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe" ,this msbuild.exe is throwing following error window " MSBuild.exe requires following .net framework version==4.6" .its failing with same error on all the new servers been installed with VS2019 on windows 2019 server.
The thing is I have all the .net framework packages from 3,3.5,4.6.2,4.7,4.72 and 4.8 installed on the server, but MSBuild.exe is looking for 4.6 version which is also installed on the server but unable to locate it. So seeking your expertise to find out a right fix. Appreciate your help on this issue!

Thanks !
Ilaiya R

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Answer 1

Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Microsoft External Staff

Hello @Raju, Ilaiyaraja,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Did you modify some .config files or some settings, maybe by mistake?

Please right-click MSBuild.exe.config file and click Open With => Choose another app => select Notepad => confirm that the supported runtime version of this line: <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework, Version=v4.6" /> is set to v4.0.

Best Regards,

Tianyu

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Raju, Ilaiyaraja 0 Reputation points

2023-10-12T07:53:07.9133333+00:00

Hi Tianyu,
Thanks for your response!
No we didnt change anything until yesterday night!
We have found that .net framework 4.6 reference is coming from MSBuild.exe.config file late yesterday night. so I just changed version from 4.6 to 4.8 in that config file and it got worked! I did try couple of building couple of projects in jenkins pipeline and it works fine . it was really nightmare how it worked .not even sure keeping 4.8 is advisible instead of 4.6 .but it works fine with 4.8. I dint change v4.0 in that file .its still referring to v4.0 only. only change I did was 4.6 to 4.8 .
and you have correctly spot it . Thanks a lot! its been a week I was trying to fix this . Have installed all .net framework versions .but .net framework 4.6 is still not being recognized by VS 2019 msbuild.exe . however the good thing is its working fine with 4.8 version now . I'll update the same on all our new agent and get it working first.

Thanks again for your response!
Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2023-10-12T17:30:51.3966667+00:00

.net 4.6 went out of support over a year ago. you should upgrade your projects to 4.8, and update any nuget packages. You probably should have started this process a couple years ago, rather than wait to after support ran out.

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How to fix VS2019 msbuild.exe cannot locate .net framework v4.6 installed on windows 2019 standard OS.

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