msbuild 14 doesn't work without full .net framework installation

Question

I have a build machine with visual studio 2010 and multiple build targets. all the other targets that I use works as expected and for some reason the new build of version 14 for .net 4.6.1 doesn't work.

When I'm executing the build from command line I get the following error:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(1097,5): warning MSB3644: The reference assemblies for framework ".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.1" were not found. To resolve this, install the SDK or Targeting Pack for this framework version or retarget your application to a version of the framework for which you have the SDK or Targeting Pack installed. Note that assemblies will be resolved from the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) and will be used in place of reference assemblies. Therefore your assembly may not be correctly targeted for the framework you intend.

Can someone explain to me how to solve it?

Solution

You should install the correct SDK of the .NET Framework (and probably Windows) to be able to compile for .NET 4.6.1.

• You can find the .NET 4.6.1 SDK here.
• The latest Windows SDK can be found on this page, under Windows Standalone SDK for Windows 10.

Comments

[Woland]

Installing .NET 4.6.1 SDK helped solve my issue on Jenkins CI server, installing just .NET 4.6.1 or multi targeting pack didn't help.

[TankorSmash]

The key for me was the restart VS2017 after I installed this, otherwise it would keep telling me it wasn't installed each time I reloaded the project.