Solution: The target version of the .NET Framework in the project does not match the .NET Framework launch condition version

The problem:

You’re building a setup project in Visual Studio (aka deployment project or installer project) and find the following warning in the build output:

The target version of the .NET framework in the project does not match the NET framework launch condition version...
The target version of the .NET framework in the project does not match the NET framework launch condition version…

Why this is happening:

The project you want to deploy (using the setup project) targets a more recent .NET Framework than specified in the setup project’s launch conditions.

In my case, the project targets .NET Framework 4.7:

application target .NET framework
Double click on ‘Properties’ in the Solution Explorer to show this screen.

Meanwhile, the setup project was still checking for .NET Framework 4.6.1 as a launch condition (requirement on the target machine).

The solution: Update the launch condition version to match the target framework of your project.

In the Setup Project, double click on ‘Microsoft .NET Framework’ to show its properties. Then change the .NET Framework version in the dropdown list:

launch condition .net framework version

One more thing: Check the prerequisites

While this has nothing to do with the warning, you might as well check which version of the .NET framework your setup program will install (if any).

Right click on the setup project and select ‘Properties’. In the Property Pages dialog, click on ‘Prerequisites…’:

setup program prerequisites

7 thoughts on “Solution: The target version of the .NET Framework in the project does not match the .NET Framework launch condition version”

  1. Thank you very much. I often struggle to find good help with setup projects as it seems to have generally fallen out of favour. This guide instantly addressed and solved my problem. It took me longer to write this note than to fix my issue.

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