Visual Studio Can't Target .NET Framework 4.8

Just had a similar issue with Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition: only .Net Core versions were shown.

I edited the .csproj file manually. I changed the line with the TargetFramework property to

<TargetFramework>net48</TargetFramework> 

Oddly, now all other versions show up also.

Just thought I'll post my issues as I stumbled across this too with VS2019 Winforms project, and couldn't target anything apart from .Net 5 and Core 3.1. Turns out there're 2 types of Winforms, Winforms App and Winforms App (.Net Framework). The former won't be able to target the other .net framework. The latter is able to. Duh! Simple stuffs that aren't obvious.

This Visual Studio thread had all the answers I was looking for. The .NET Framework 4.8 Developer Pack includes both the SDK and Targeting Pack. After installing this and restarting Visual Studio, I can now see .NET Framework 4.8 as a targeting option for Visual Studio projects. You should not need to do any Visual Studio Installer steps.

Also mentioned in the above thread, .NET Framework 4.8 will be included in the Visual Studio installation process as of 16.3 (currently listed under 16.3 Preview 2).

None of the solutions above fixed my issues but the one by Oak_3260548 Pointed me in the right direction.

In Visual Studio Installer, that can be accessed by clicking on "Tools / Get Tools and features" in the top menu, I selected the "Individual Component" tab and checked ".Net Framework 4.8 Targeting pack". That fixed it for me.

I installed framework 4.8 through VS under target frameworks. It wasn't selectable there, under project properties as I would expect.

I wound up having to re-create my VS project. For template, I found framework 4.8 through searching templates in project creation using framework c# console search params. I then copied my files over to the new project folder, and added them as existing items through the solution tool.