Reference to System.Management for Powershell on C# .NET 4.0 not working

Question

I have a .NET 4.0 C# project where I need to run Powershell via C# in powershell runspace. I had tested my code it was all working good.

When opening same project on a new computer (Win10, VS2017) and trying to run same project getting issues. I have referenced the DLL on:

C:\windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Management.Automation\v4.0_3.0.0.0__31bf3856ad364e35\System.Management.Automation.dll

Also doing this using commands

using System.Management;
using System.Management.Automation;
using System.Management.Automation.Runspaces;

but System.Management.Automation and System.Management.Automation.Runspaces are not recognized.

Getting the error: The type or namespace name 'Automation' does not exist in the namespace 'System.Management' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

Somehow the references are not being used...

Answer 1

Not sure what exactly happens but when I was referencing the following DLL: C:\windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Management.Automation\v4.0_3.0.0.0__31bf3856ad364e35\System.Management.Automation.dll

VS was ignoring this DLL and complaining that we're missing the Automation namespace... although this DLL was showing as .NET 4.0, apparently it was compiled with a higher version of .NET which may explain why it was ignored.

To resolve the issue I had to add a reference by browsing and picking this DLL: C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Management.Automation\1.0.0.0__31bf3856ad364e35\System.Management.Automation.dll

which may seem like an older version of the powershell engine.

One more note which may have contributed to this is that on my new Win10 machine, I installed VS2017 so I did not manually install the .NET 4.0 FW and maybe the VS2017 installation puts higher version of the System.Management.Automation DLLs...