Visual Studio 2017 Community will not start on Windows 10

Question

Visual Studio 2017 Community will not start on my Windows 10 Pro machine saying:

.NET Framework 4.6 is not installed.

The issue is, .NET Framework 4.6 is installed, and no amount of reinstalling, restarting, reinstalling and restarting will make any part of Windows recognize this fact. What in the world is going on here?

I'm using Windows 10 Creator's Update, and for some forsaken reason that means that I can apparently never install .NET Framework < 4.7 manually, and nothing I can do or google my way to seems to reflect this issue or provide a solution. I've also tried repairing my VS install several times with the VS installer, no dice.

Answer 1

We can fix the error in the registry and avoid the work-around of changing PKGDEF file (which will be removed once there's an update to VS)

• Using regedit.exe, please check if value HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full\Version is set to 4.7.02046 or larger
• Please set value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full\Version to the same value (it is 4.0.* at the moment). You may need to take ownership of the key.

Source: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/113984/net-framework-46-is-not-installed.html?childToView=114302#comment-114302