diff --git a/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/RoslynCodeCompiler.cs b/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/RoslynCodeCompiler.cs
index 4ab9a01..13613ab 100644
--- a/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/RoslynCodeCompiler.cs
+++ b/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/RoslynCodeCompiler.cs
@@ -53,14 +53,11 @@ CodeCompilerResult CompileFileInternal (
 			var parseOptions = args?.ParseOptions ?? new CSharpParseOptions();
 
 			if (arguments.LangVersion != null) {
-				if (LanguageVersionFacts.TryParse(arguments.LangVersion, out var langVersion)) {
-					parseOptions = parseOptions.WithLanguageVersion (langVersion);
-				} else {
-					throw new System.Exception($"Unknown value '{arguments.LangVersion}' for langversion");
-				}
+				parseOptions = WithLanguageVersion (parseOptions, arguments.LangVersion);
 			} else {
 				// need to update this when updating referenced roslyn binaries
-				CSharpLangVersionHelper.GetBestSupportedLangVersion (runtime, CSharpLangVersion.v9_0);
+				var langVersion = CSharpLangVersionHelper.GetBestSupportedLangVersion (runtime, CSharpLangVersion.v9_0);
+				parseOptions = WithLanguageVersion (parseOptions, CSharpLangVersionHelper.ToString (langVersion));
 			}
 
 			var syntaxTrees = new List<SyntaxTree> ();
@@ -120,5 +117,14 @@ CodeCompilerResult CompileFileInternal (
 				Errors = errors
 			};
 		}
+
+		static CSharpParseOptions WithLanguageVersion (CSharpParseOptions parseOptions, string langVersionText)
+		{
+			if (LanguageVersionFacts.TryParse (langVersionText, out var langVersion)) {
+				return parseOptions.WithLanguageVersion (langVersion);
+			} else {
+				throw new System.Exception ($"Unknown value '{langVersionText}' for langversion");
+			}
+		}
 	}
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/TemplatingEngineExtension.cs b/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/TemplatingEngineExtension.cs
index 20a6fa3..ba7f312 100644
--- a/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/TemplatingEngineExtension.cs
+++ b/Mono.TextTemplating.Roslyn/TemplatingEngineExtension.cs
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ public static class RoslynTemplatingEngineExtensions
 		public static void UseInProcessCompiler (this TemplatingEngine engine)
 		{
 			engine.SetCompilerFunc ((RuntimeInfo r) => new RoslynCodeCompiler (r));
+
+			RuntimeInfo.ThrowOnMissingDotNetCoreSdkDirectory = false;
 		}
 
 		public static void UseInProcessCompiler (this TemplateGenerator generator)
diff --git a/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/CSharpLangVersionHelper.cs b/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/CSharpLangVersionHelper.cs
index 1e911d2..c1f7365 100644
--- a/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/CSharpLangVersionHelper.cs
+++ b/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/CSharpLangVersionHelper.cs
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ static bool HasLangVersionArg (string args) =>
 				&& ProcessArgumentBuilder.TryParse (args, out var parsedArgs)
 				&& parsedArgs.Any (a => a.IndexOf("langversion") == 1);
 
-		static string ToString (CSharpLangVersion v) => v switch {
+		internal static string ToString (CSharpLangVersion v) => v switch {
 			CSharpLangVersion.v5_0 => "5",
 			CSharpLangVersion.v6_0 => "6",
 			CSharpLangVersion.v7_0 => "7",
diff --git a/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/RuntimeInfo.cs b/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/RuntimeInfo.cs
index 02bd5ab..675a21e 100644
--- a/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/RuntimeInfo.cs
+++ b/Mono.TextTemplating/Mono.TextTemplating.CodeCompilation/RuntimeInfo.cs
@@ -56,6 +56,8 @@ class RuntimeInfo
 		public string RefAssembliesDir { get; private set; }
 		public string RuntimeFacadesDir { get; internal set; }
 
+		internal static bool ThrowOnMissingDotNetCoreSdkDirectory { get; set; } = true;
+
 		public static RuntimeInfo GetRuntime ()
 		{
 			if (Type.GetType ("Mono.Runtime") != null)
@@ -135,10 +137,11 @@ static RuntimeInfo GetDotNetCoreSdk ()
 
 			string MakeCscPath (string d) => Path.Combine (d, "Roslyn", "bincore", "csc.dll");
 			var sdkDir = FindHighestVersionedDirectory (Path.Combine (dotnetRoot, "sdk"), d => File.Exists (MakeCscPath (d)), out var sdkVersion);
-			if (sdkDir == null) {
+			if (sdkDir == null && ThrowOnMissingDotNetCoreSdkDirectory) {
 				return FromError (RuntimeKind.NetCore, "Could not find csc.dll in any .NET Core SDK");
 			}
-			var maxCSharpVersion = CSharpLangVersionHelper.FromNetCoreSdkVersion (sdkVersion);
+			string cscPath = sdkDir == null ? null : MakeCscPath (sdkDir);
+			CSharpLangVersion maxCSharpVersion = CSharpLangVersionHelper.FromNetCoreSdkVersion (sdkVersion);
 
 			// it's ok if this is null, we may be running on an older SDK that didn't support packs
 			//in which case we fall back to resolving from the runtime dir
@@ -148,11 +151,15 @@ static RuntimeInfo GetDotNetCoreSdk ()
 				out _
 			);
 
-			return new RuntimeInfo (RuntimeKind.NetCore) { RuntimeDir = runtimeDir, RefAssembliesDir = refAssembliesDir, CscPath = MakeCscPath (sdkDir), MaxSupportedLangVersion = maxCSharpVersion, Version = hostVersion };
+			return new RuntimeInfo (RuntimeKind.NetCore) { RuntimeDir = runtimeDir, RefAssembliesDir = refAssembliesDir, CscPath = cscPath, MaxSupportedLangVersion = maxCSharpVersion, Version = hostVersion };
 		}
 
 		static string FindHighestVersionedDirectory (string parentFolder, Func<string, bool> validate, out SemVersion bestVersion)
 		{
+			if (!Directory.Exists (parentFolder)) {
+				bestVersion = SemVersion.Zero;
+				return null;
+			}
 			string bestMatch = null;
 			bestVersion = SemVersion.Zero;
 			foreach (var dir in Directory.EnumerateDirectories (parentFolder)) {