The imported project "C:\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" was not found

Open your csproj file in notepad (or notepad++) Find the line:

<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />

and change it to

<Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />

This is a global solution, not dependent on particular package or bin.

In my case, I removed Packages folder from my root directory.

Maybe it happens because of your packages are there but compiler is not finding it's reference. so remove older packages first and add new packages.

Steps to Add new packages

  • First remove, packages folder (it will be near by or one step up to your current project folder).
  • Then restart the project or solution.
  • Now, Rebuild solution file.
  • Project will get new references from nuGet package manager. And your issue will be resolved.

This is not proper solution, but I posted it here because I face same issue.

In my case, I wasn't even able to open my solution in visual studio and didn't get any help with other SO answers.


For me the issue was that the path of the project contained %20 characters, because git added those instead of spaces when the repository was cloned. Another problem might be if the path to a package is too long.


In my case I could not load one out of 5 projects in my solution.

It helped to close Visual Studio and I had to delete Microsoft.Net.Compilers.1.3.2 nuget folder under packages folder.

Afterwards, open your solution again and the project loaded as expected

Just to be sure, close all instances of VS before you delete the folder.