SharePoint 2013 – The product requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5

SharePoint 2013 – The product requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5

The product requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5: I’ll go straight to the point, the issue is not .NET Framework 4.5 that is corrupted, but it’s .NET Framework 4.6 (or 4.6.1) that is installed and confuses SharePoint’s installer! It drove me insane and when I finally resolved it, I found an article from Microsoft about it. This was a funny error since when running the prerequisites, it was ok and it detected .NET 4.5 but it didn’t when it was going to install it.

All you have to do is uninstall .NET 4.6.1/4.6!

I had this issue whilst trying to install SharePoint 2013 – The product requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.

the-product-requires-net-framework45

Bad news: when trying to search for .NET in the Add/Remove Programs (View Installed Updates), you won’t find it! You need to have the KB number for it. Good news: for .NET 4.6.1 it’s KB3102467.

Update 20191015: If you have .NET 4.8 installed, then you must uninstall Update for Microsoft Windows (KB4486081). Thanks to Protonus for pointing it out.

So, go in View Installed Updates and Uninstall KB3102467.

uninstall-KB3102467-net461

Note: If you’re uninstalling 4.6.1, it’ll also uninstall 4.6! Now you can restart the server and you’ll be able to continue with your installation.

The first step I took to troubleshoot this issue was to verify what .NET version I had installed on my Windows Server 2012 R2 server. By default the server comes with .NET 4.5 so I thought that patching the server to the latest updates must have caused this. To verify what version I had installed on that server, I looked up to the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full

I then used the table below to verify the version:

Value of the Release DWORD

Version
378389 .NET Framework 4.5
378675 .NET Framework 4.5.1 installed with Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2
378758 .NET Framework 4.5.1 installed on Windows 8, Windows 7 SP1, or Windows Vista SP2
379893 .NET Framework 4.5.2
On Windows 10 systems: 393295

On all other OS versions: 393297

.NET Framework 4.6
On Windows 10 November Update systems: 394254

On all other OS versions: 394271

.NET Framework 4.6.1
On Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14295: 394747

On all other OS versions: 394748

.NET Framework 4.6.2 Preview

For more info about the above table, check out How to: Determine which .NET Framework Versions are installed from MSDN. You may also use the .NET Framework Setup Verification Utility from Aaron Stebner (GUI).

Once you’re done installing SharePoint (or whatever application is complaining), you may re-run Windows Updates and update .NET again to the latest version.

Microsoft Workaround

Looks like Microsoft has finally sorted this with an official workaround. Note that the above will still be a valid workaround. Here’s the link to Microsoft’s: https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/3087184/sharepoint-2013-or-project-server-2013-setup-error-if-the-.net-framework-4.6-is-installed

Thanks to VAS that posted this link in the comment.

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