Microsoft.Common.targets was not found. Cannot open or create solutions.

Question

_{Monday, April 8, 2013 6:59 PM}

I've been working on a method to open Excel 2013 files in VS 2010, and somehow I've managed to hose my entire VS environment. When I attempt to open an existing solution, I receive this error message:

    Loading C:\Users\Bio\Documents\Visual Studio Projects\FileSearcher\FileSearcher\FileSearcher.csproj ...
    C:\Users\Bio\Documents\Visual Studio Projects\FileSearcher\FileSearcher\FileSearcher.csproj : error  : Unable to read the project file 'FileSearcher.csproj'.
    C:\Users\Bio\Documents\Visual Studio Projects\FileSearcher\FileSearcher\FileSearcher.csproj(161,3): The imported project "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

I've tried copying the Microsoft.CSharp.targets to the v4.0.30319 directory, and it causes this error:

    C:\Users\Bio\Documents\Visual Studio Projects\FileSearcher\FileSearcher\FileSearcher.csproj : error  : Unable to read the project file 'FileSearcher.csproj'.
    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.CSharp.targets(196,5): The imported project "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

I then tried copying Microsoft.Common.targets to the v4.0.30319 directory, and creating a new project. I received this error:

    Project 'WindowsFormsApplication1' could not be opened because the Microsoft Visual C# 2010 compiler could not be created. Please re-install Visual Studio.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled VS several times without success. Any thoughts?

All replies (2)

_{Monday, April 8, 2013 7:52 PM ✅Answered}

Hello,

You might very well need to reinstall the Framework first then Visual Studio again.

Uninstall the Framework via Cleanup tool

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_{Tuesday, April 9, 2013 7:52 AM}

Hi,

Have you tried opening the solution in other computer which installed the visual studio 2010?

You can do as Kevininstructor said, reinstall the .Net Framework. From your error message, I guess that there are something wrong in your .Net Framework.

Best regards,

Ego [MSFT]
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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.