VSTO application installation gives “The required version of the .NET Framework is not installed on this computer.”

I’ve been trying to install a VSTO application from a ClickOnce deployment and keep seeing the error “The required version of the .NET Framework is not installed on this computer.”  I’ve seen this in particular on Windows 7 beta and now the Release Candidate as well.

The solution is actually a slight extension of what Richard wrote in one of his blog posts. Here’s what I had to do to get a ClickOnce VSTO deployment working:

  • Log on to the computer as a domain admin. Note that these steps didn’t seem to work when logged on as a local admin, or as a regular user who could elevate application privileges.
  • Start the ClickOnce VSTO deployment and at the EULA page, pause the install.
  • Uninstall the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system (version 3.0 Runtime) which will have been installed on your PC.
  • Reinstall the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system (version 3.0 Runtime) – download a copy from here.
  • Search your hard disk for the .vsto file – it should be in your Temporary Internet Files.
  • Double-click the .vsto file to deploy the application.
  • Quit the VSTO ClickOnce deployment we started in the first step.

This has worked quite happily now on a number of computers.

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