ARTICLE AD BOX
I have a solution with two projects:
A class library targeting .NET Standard 2.0
An application targeting .NET Framework 4.7
The .NET Standard library references a NuGet package that ships different assemblies for different target frameworks.
For example:
The .NET Standard folder in the package contains Assembly A
The .NET Framework folder contains Assembly B
These assemblies have different simple names.
The .NET Standard library is compiled against Assembly A, however the .NET Framework 4.7 application restores Assembly B, because NuGet automatically selects the .NETFramework asset group.
When running the application, I get:
Could not load file or assembly 'AssemblyA'
The reason is that Assembly A never appears in the application's output folder — only Assembly B is restored.
I also found this related announcement from Microsoft:
https://github.com/dotnet/announcements/issues/31
This issue describes how older dependency resolution behaviors can cause missing assets when mixing .NET Framework + .NET Standard + NuGet packages with different TFMs.
What I tried
Migrating the .NET Framework project to PackageReference
Cleaning/resetting bin/obj and rebuilding
Ensuring both projects reference the same version of the NuGet package
Removing the direct package reference in the application to rely on transitive restore
Checking if NuGet supports overriding asset selection (e.g., picking .NET Standard assets from a .NET Framework project)
NuGet consistently selects the .NETFramework assets for the .NET Framework 4.7 project, so only Assembly B is restored.
Question
Is there any supported way to make a .NET Framework 4.7 project use the .NET Standard assets of a NuGet package, so that the dependency expected by the .NET Standard library (Assembly A) is available at runtime?
Or is this scenario simply unsupported because:
NuGet chooses assets strictly based on the consuming project's target framework
The assemblies in each TFM folder have different names/identities
And therefore cannot be substituted via binding redirects or other mechanisms?
