Couldn't load the Windows Runtime assemblies in 7.1.2 (solved)

Steps to reproduce

I downloaded WinRT.Runtime.dll 1.1.3 from the CsWinRT page and Microsoft.Windows.SDK.NET.dll from the Microsoft.Windows.SDK.NET.Ref page like it was described but cannot figure out why it still doesn’t work.

Add-Type -AssemblyName "D:\Desktop\WinRT.Runtime.dll"
Add-Type -AssemblyName "D:\Desktop\Microsoft.Windows.SDK.NET.dll"

[Windows.Management.Deployment.PackageManager,Windows.Web,ContentType=WindowsRuntime]::new().FindPackages() | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Id -Property DisplayName | Format-Table -Property Name

Expected behavior

Name
----
1527c705-839a-4832-9118-54d4Bd6a0c89
c5e2524a-ea46-4f67-841f-6a9465d9d515
E2A4F912-2574-4A75-9BB0-0D023378592B
F46D4000-FD22-4DB4-AC8E-4E1DDDE828FE
Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin
Microsoft.AccountsControl
Microsoft.AsyncTextService
Microsoft.BioEnrollment
Microsoft.CredDialogHost
Microsoft.ECApp

and so on...

Actual behavior

InvalidOperation: Unable to find type [Windows.Management.Deployment.PackageManager,Windows.Web, ContentType=WindowsRuntime].

Environment data

Name Value

---

PSVersion 7.1.2 PSEdition Core GitCommitId 7.1.2 OS Microsoft Windows 10.0.19042 Platform Win32NT PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…} PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3 SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1 WSManStackVersion 3.0

Edited July, 5, 2022

Now it’s needed to used as it’s presented in PowerShell 5.1:

[Windows.Management.Deployment.PackageManager]::new().FindPackages() | Select-Object -Property DisplayName -ExpandProperty Id | Select-Object -Property Name, DisplayName

[farag2]

LOL. I meant “familiar” with PS. ))

[SeeminglyScience]

It still doesnt output what PS 5.1 does. Or what am I doing wrong again?

Well look at that…

You’re not doing anything wrong, they just seem to have changed up the design quite a bit. As a work around you can do:

$all = [Windows.Management.Deployment.PackageManager]::new().FindPackages()
$all.AdditionalTypeData[[Collections.IEnumerable].TypeHandle]

/cc @daxian-dbw for awareness. It seems like they’ve made non-concrete types a lot more complicated to work with.

Edit: Or rather they used to have an ABI.Systems.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<> concrete class for enumerable WinRT objects, but have now replaced that with a plain IInspectable.