Could not load file or assembly 'System.Management.Automation, Version=3.0.0.0

Question

I am building a application in C#, so far all it does is call the "get-process" powershell command.

I have edited the csproj file to include System.Management.Automation

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

When run locally (Windows 8.1 running Powershell version 4) it works.

When run on a remote Windows 7 machine with Powershell version 2, the program throws an exception

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Management.Automation, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

It cannot find System.Management.Automation Version=3.0.0.0. I was lead to believe that this would work on any version of Powershell and reference the local version

The cmdlet Get-Process does work on PS V2.

Is it possible to stop forcing version 3 of system management automation? I've read you can do this in the app.config but there is no reference to system management automation.

Thankyou for your time.

------------------------------------------------------ EDIT -----------------------------------------------

I was able to make this work but setting the Target framework to .Net 3.5, however this now forces PS V2. Is there anyway I can target the local version of the system management dll and make clients use that version?

Answer 1

Powershell 2.0 does not include System.Management.Automation V3. System.Management.Automation is provided by Windows Management Framework Core, not .Net. If you've got Powershell 2.0, you do not have Automation 3.0. For a list of what files/assemblies are provided in Powershell 2.0 visit the following site:

Windows Management Framework (Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0)

Upgrade to Powershell 4.0 by installing WMF 4.0 from Microsoft on the target machine.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40855

Answer 2

I had this exact problem on a fully up to date Windows 10 system.

What solved it for me was installing the latest release of Powershell from here:

https://github.com/powershell/powershell