Referencing system.management.automation.dll in Visual Studio

Question

I am beginning to look into the PowerShell model and snap-in development. The first thing I notice is to reference System.management.automation.dll. However in Visual Studio, the .NET tab does not that assembly, and neither am I able to browse to C:\windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Management.Automation\1.0.0.0__31bf3856ad364e35\System.Management.Automation.dll to make a file-based reference.

Am i forced to copy the file out manually to make an easy reference?

Answer 1

A copy of System.Management.Automation.dll is installed when you install the windows SDK (a suitable, recent version of it, anyway). It should be in C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\

Answer 2

I couldn't get the SDK to install properly (some of the files seemed unsigned, something like that). I found another solution here and that seems to work okay for me. It doesn't require installation of new files at all. Basically, what you do is:

Edit the .csproj file in a text editor, and add:

<Reference Include="System.Management.Automation" />

to the relevant section.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Yup, that worked for me as well.

Answer 4

The assembly coming with Powershell SDK (C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0) does not come with Powershell 2 specific types.

Manually editing the csproj file solved my problem.