I have to register all .dll files in a directory to GAC silently without any screen popup.
How can i do this using powershell.
Please help :)
I am the author of PowerShell GAC. With PowerShell GAC you don't need gacutil and you can install all dlls in a folder to the GAC with the following command.
# Can only be run from an elevated prompt
Add-GacAssembly C:\Folder\*.dll
Use gacutil.exe.
& gacutil.exe -i <strongly named DLL>
Note - the DLL must meet the requirements of being installable into the GAC.
The .Net Framework already contains methods to register components in the GAC. No need to add SDKs and third party plugins.
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::Load("System.EnterpriseServices, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a")
$publisher = New-Object System.EnterpriseServices.Internal.Publish
# For installation
$publisher.GacInstall("C:\Components\MyComponent.dll")
# For removal
$publisher.GacRemove("C:\Components\MyComponent.dll")
Related
Sometimes in my PowerShell scripts, I need access to a specific DLL, using Add-Type -AssemblyName. However, the DLLs I need aren't always on the machine or in the GAC. For instance, I might want a quick script that uses Dapper to query a database. In these cases, I have been literally copying the DLLs along with the ps1 file. I was wondering if this was common/a good idea and whether there was an existing extension that would load up NuGet packages, store then in a global or local folder and call Add-Type -AssemblyName automatically.
It'd be a lot like using npm or pip in Node.js or Python, respectively.
Update
I did some research and there's nothing built-in to older versions of PowerShell. I made some progress trying to write one from scratch using the nuget.exe
&"$(Get-Location)/nuget.exe" install $packageName -Version $version -OutputDirectory "$(Get-Location)/packages" -NoCache -NoInteractive
This will download a given package/version under a "packages" folder in the current folder, along with any of its dependencies. However, it looks like it downloads every framework version, with no obvious way to tell which one to use for your given environment.
Otherwise, you could just loop through the results and call Add-Type:
Get-ChildItem .\packages\ -Recurse -Filter "*.dll" | % {
try
{
Add-Type -Path $_.FullName
}
catch [System.Exception]
{
}
}
I tried using the restore command using a project.json file to see if I could control the framework version with no luck. This is just too hacky for me.
I'll check out #crownedjitter's suggestion of using PowerShell 5.
Update
Using #crownedjitter's suggestion, I was able to eventually register the PackageManagement module with NuGet (see comments below). With the following command, I was able to reproduce what the Nuget.exe command above was doing:
Install-Package Dapper -Destination packages
Obviously, this is a lot shorter. Problem is it has the same limitation; it brings down every framework version of a package. If this includes .NET core, it brings down a good deal of the .NET core framework with it! There doesn't appear to be a way to specify a target framework (a.k.a, .NET 4.5.1 or below).
I am wondering if there is a way to determine which NuGet package folder(s) to load the DLLs from based on PowerShell's current $PSVersionTable.CLRVersion field.
crownedjitter's helpful answer is a good starting point, and Travis himself has provided additional pointers in comments, but let me try to summarize as of Windows PowerShell v5.1 / PowerShell [Core] 7.1:
Update: The original answer, reprinted in the section after this one, contains some useful general pointers, plus a link to the feature suggestion on GitHub to integrate NuGet packages with Add-Type, but the Install-Package based method it shows ultimately falls short, because it doesn't account for dependencies of a package, as
BACON points out:
The one (not-so-trivial) step that's missing is loading any dependencies that may have been installed, too. Because the Dependencies property doesn't contain enough information, it seems that would involve extracting the .nuspec file from the .nupkg file in the Source directory, reading the <group> for the appropriate framework, and loading those packages' assemblies.
The following approach remedies this, but note that it first requires download and installation of the .NET SDK with its dotnet CLI:
Create a folder for an auxiliary project to which the package will be added and change to it; e.g.:
Set-Location (New-Item -Type Directory assemblies)
In that folder, create a dummy library project:
For PowerShell (Core), to target the latest installed .NET (Core) SDK by default:
dotnet new classlib
For Windows PowerShell or to target a .NET 5+ OS-specific framework:
To target the highest .NET Standard that is still .NET Framework-compatible:
dotnet new classlib -f netstandard2.0
To target a specific .NET Framework version only or a .NET 5+ OS-specific framework:
You'll have to manually edit the generated .csproj and update the <TargetFramework> element; e.g., to target the latest and last version, 4.8, use <TargetFramework>net48</TargetFramework>; to target .NET 6.0 with Windows-specific APIs, use <TargetFramework>net6.0-windows</TargetFramework>
Targeting .NET Framework may require downloading a developer pack first.
Add a reference to the package of interest; e.g.:
dotnet add package Dapper
To reference a specific version, add -v <version>
Publish the dummy project, which copies all required DLLs, including dependencies, into the publish folder:
dotnet publish -c Release
Important: The exact case (lower- vs. uppercase) of the -c argument determines the exact case of the corresponding output folder; to make sure your code works on case-sensitive filesystems too, notably on Linux, make sure that you use the exact same case in the file paths referring to the output binaries.
Test that the package's main assembly can be loaded; e.g.:
Add-Type -Path bin/Release/*/publish/Dapper.dll
Verify that the package's types can be used; e.g.: [Dapper.DbString]::new()
Now you can either reference the main DLL directly from the auxiliary project, or you can copy all bin/Release/*/publish/*.dll files to a folder of your choice and reference it from there.
The following sample script shows a script that downloads the Terminal.Gui package on demand, and creates the auxiliary project in an assemblies subfolder relative to the script's location.
$packageName = 'Terminal.Gui'
$assembly = "$packageName.dll"
# Set to #() to get the latest stable version.
$packageVersionArgs = '-v', '1.0.0-pre.4'
$projectFolder = 'assemblies' # Subfolder for the aux. project
$assemblyPath = "$PSScriptRoot/$projectFolder/bin/Release/*/publish/$assembly"
$literalAssemblyPath = Convert-Path -ErrorAction Ignore $assemblyPath
if ($literalAssemblyPath) {
Write-Verbose -vb "Package '$packageName' already installed. Loading main assembly: $literalAssemblyPath"
Add-Type -ErrorAction Stop -LiteralPath $literalAssemblyPath
}
else {
Write-Verbose -vb "Installing package '$packageName'..."
$null = Get-Command -ErrorAction Stop -CommandType Application dotnet
Push-Location (New-Item -ErrorAction Stop -Type Directory "$PSScriptRoot/$projectFolder")
$null = dotnet new classlib
$null = dotnet add package $packageName #packageVersionArgs
$null = dotnet publish -c Release
Pop-Location
Write-Verbose -vb "Loading main assembly: $assemblyPath"
Add-Type -ErrorAction Stop -Path $assemblyPath
}
# Instantiate a type from the package to verify that it was loaded.
"Listing property names of a [Terminal.Gui.Button] instance:"
[Terminal.Gui.Button]::new().psobject.Properties.Name
Caveat:
Some packages have dependencies on native libraries, which dotnet publish places in the runtimes subfolder tree of the publish folder, in platform-specific subfolders such as runtimes\win-x64\native.
In Windows PowerShell, Add-Type -LiteralPath (and its underlying .NET API method, [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom()) does find the platform-appropriate native library, but, curiously, it does not work as of PowerShell (Core) 7.2.0-preview.9 - at least as observed with version 5.0.9 of the Microsoft.Data.Sqlite NuGet package.
The workaround is to find the platform-appropriate native library in the runtimes subfolder tree and copy it directly into the publish folder. The install-on-demand Add-NuGetType helper function, discussed in this answer, automates this process.
ORIGINAL ANSWER
As stated, PowerShell v5+ - including PowerShell Core - comes with the PackageManagement module that is a meta package manager providing access to multiple repositories via providers; on-demand installation of this module is may be possible in v3 and v4 (this download is labeled "March 2016 Preview", and it is the most recent I could find).
Find-PackageProvider lists all available providers.
Get-PackageProvider lists installed ones.
It is the nuget provider that enables installation of Nuget packages via Install-Package, and there are two potential hurdles:
The nuget provider may not be installed.
It may be installed with an incorrect API URL that prevents Find-Package from returning results.
Test if the nuget provider is installed:
# If this fails, the provider isn't installed
Get-PackageProvider nuget
If it is installed: Verify that the package source URI is correct:
Open an elevated PowerShell session.
Run Get-PackageSource:
If you find a Nugettest source, remove it:
Unregister-PackageSource Nugettest
If the Location column for source nuget.org shows https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json (or something other than ttps://www.nuget.org/api/v2), update it:
Set-PackageSource nuget.org -NewLocation https://www.nuget.org/api/v2 -Trusted
Caveat: This may break the ability to browse NuGet packages in Visual Studio: see https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShellGet/issues/107
If it is not installed: Install the provider from scratch:
Open an elevated PowerShell session.
Run the following commands:
Install-PackageProvider nuget
Register-PackageSource -ProviderName nuget -name nuget.org -Location https://www.nuget.org/api/v2 -Trusted
After completing the above steps, discovery (e.g., Find-Package Dapper) and installation (e.g., Install-Package Dapper) of NuGet packages should succeed.
By default, Install-Package installs in the AllUsers scope, which requires elevation, but you can opt into installing in the context of the current user only with -Scope CurrentUser.
Using a downloaded NuGet package:
Note: See this suggestion on GitHub for making the use of NuGet packages in PowerShell easier by extending Add-Type, which would obviate the need for all subsequent steps, which are still needed as of PowerShell Core 6.2.0.
As demonstrated in the question, you need to manually load the package's assemblies into your PowerShell session with Add-Type -Path <assembly-file-path>; however, in the era of .NET Core, packages may have DLLs for different .NET environments, so you cannot always blindly load all *.dll files in the package folder:
In order to discover the file-system location of a downloaded package, query the .Source property of the relevant object returned by Get-Package:
(Get-Package Dapper).Source
To see the full paths of all DLLs inside the package, run the following:
(Get-ChildItem -Filter *.dll -Recurse (Split-Path (Get-Package Dapper).Source)).FullName
Looking at the full DLL paths should tell you which DLL(s) are the right ones to load for your environment; using the example of the Dapper package:
C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\NuGet\Packages\Dapper.1.50.4\lib\net451\Dapper.dll
C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\NuGet\Packages\Dapper.1.50.4\lib\netstandard1.3\Dapper.dll
C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\NuGet\Packages\Dapper.1.50.4\lib\netstandard2.0\Dapper.dll
Given that .NET Standard DLLs run on all .NET platforms, however, you can programmatically look for the (latest) such DLLs and load them:
(Get-Item (Join-Path (Split-Path (Get-Package Dapper).Source) lib/netstandard*) |
Sort-Object { [version] ($_.Name -replace '^netstandard') })[-1] |
Get-ChildItem -Filter *.dll -Recurse |
ForEach-Object { Add-Type -LiteralPath $_.FullName }
The above looks for the highest available .NET Standard version DLLs; if you want to target a specific version, the command becomes easier; e.g., for .NET Standard 2.0:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.dll -LiteralPath (Join-Path (Split-Path (Get-Package Dapper).Source) lib/netstandard2.0) |
ForEach-Object { Add-Type -LiteralPath $_.FullName }
Are you using Powershell 5? Because if you are, it has a package management module:
It appears to be open source: https://github.com/OneGet
I have a powershell script that references dll files and i would like to distribute this script to customers. How can i do this such that the customers don't have to worry installing/referencing correct dll files?
I reference the dll files from within the script in the following way:
Add-Type -Path <local path to dll>
I am looking for a way to either bundle these dll's along with the script , or some way for powershell to install the dll when it runs. The dll's i am interested in are available as following nuget packages:
Sharepoint Client
Active Directory library
You could try copying the dll files to the directory the script is in and then use "$PSScriptRoot\Name.Of.File.dll". Zip the directory and distribute the Zip file.
Sometimes in my PowerShell scripts, I need access to a specific DLL, using Add-Type -AssemblyName. However, the DLLs I need aren't always on the machine or in the GAC. For instance, I might want a quick script that uses Dapper to query a database. In these cases, I have been literally copying the DLLs along with the ps1 file. I was wondering if this was common/a good idea and whether there was an existing extension that would load up NuGet packages, store then in a global or local folder and call Add-Type -AssemblyName automatically.
It'd be a lot like using npm or pip in Node.js or Python, respectively.
Update
I did some research and there's nothing built-in to older versions of PowerShell. I made some progress trying to write one from scratch using the nuget.exe
&"$(Get-Location)/nuget.exe" install $packageName -Version $version -OutputDirectory "$(Get-Location)/packages" -NoCache -NoInteractive
This will download a given package/version under a "packages" folder in the current folder, along with any of its dependencies. However, it looks like it downloads every framework version, with no obvious way to tell which one to use for your given environment.
Otherwise, you could just loop through the results and call Add-Type:
Get-ChildItem .\packages\ -Recurse -Filter "*.dll" | % {
try
{
Add-Type -Path $_.FullName
}
catch [System.Exception]
{
}
}
I tried using the restore command using a project.json file to see if I could control the framework version with no luck. This is just too hacky for me.
I'll check out #crownedjitter's suggestion of using PowerShell 5.
Update
Using #crownedjitter's suggestion, I was able to eventually register the PackageManagement module with NuGet (see comments below). With the following command, I was able to reproduce what the Nuget.exe command above was doing:
Install-Package Dapper -Destination packages
Obviously, this is a lot shorter. Problem is it has the same limitation; it brings down every framework version of a package. If this includes .NET core, it brings down a good deal of the .NET core framework with it! There doesn't appear to be a way to specify a target framework (a.k.a, .NET 4.5.1 or below).
I am wondering if there is a way to determine which NuGet package folder(s) to load the DLLs from based on PowerShell's current $PSVersionTable.CLRVersion field.
crownedjitter's helpful answer is a good starting point, and Travis himself has provided additional pointers in comments, but let me try to summarize as of Windows PowerShell v5.1 / PowerShell (Core) 7.3.2:
Update: The original answer, reprinted in the section after this one, contains some useful general pointers, plus a link to the feature suggestion on GitHub to integrate NuGet packages with Add-Type, but the Install-Package based method it shows ultimately falls short, because it doesn't account for dependencies of a package, as
BACON points out:
The one (not-so-trivial) step that's missing is loading any dependencies that may have been installed, too. Because the Dependencies property doesn't contain enough information, it seems that would involve extracting the .nuspec file from the .nupkg file in the Source directory, reading the <group> for the appropriate framework, and loading those packages' assemblies.
The following approach remedies this, but note that it first requires download and installation of the .NET SDK with its dotnet CLI:
Create a folder for an auxiliary project to which the package will be added and change to it; e.g.:
Set-Location (New-Item -Type Directory assemblies)
In that folder, create a dummy library project:
For PowerShell (Core), to target the latest installed .NET (Core) SDK by default:
dotnet new classlib
For Windows PowerShell or to target a .NET 5+ OS-specific framework:
To target the highest .NET Standard that is still .NET Framework-compatible:
dotnet new classlib -f netstandard2.0
To target a specific .NET Framework version only or a .NET 5+ OS-specific framework:
You'll have to manually edit the generated .csproj and update the <TargetFramework> element; e.g., to target the latest and last version, 4.8, use <TargetFramework>net48</TargetFramework>; to target .NET 6.0 with Windows-specific APIs, use <TargetFramework>net6.0-windows</TargetFramework>
Targeting .NET Framework may require downloading a developer pack first.
Add a reference to the package of interest; e.g.:
dotnet add package Dapper
To reference a specific version, add -v <version>
Publish the dummy project, which copies all required DLLs, including dependencies, into the publish folder:
dotnet publish -c Release
Important: The exact case (lower- vs. uppercase) of the -c argument determines the exact case of the corresponding output folder; to make sure your code works on case-sensitive filesystems too, notably on Linux, make sure that you use the exact same case in the file paths referring to the output binaries.
Test that the package's main assembly can be loaded; e.g.:
Add-Type -Path bin/Release/*/publish/Dapper.dll
Verify that the package's types can be used; e.g.: [Dapper.DbString]::new()
Now you can either reference the main DLL directly from the auxiliary project, or you can copy all bin/Release/*/publish/*.dll files to a folder of your choice and reference it from there.
The following sample script shows a script that downloads the Terminal.Gui package on demand, and creates the auxiliary project in an assemblies subfolder relative to the script's location.
$packageName = 'Terminal.Gui'
$assembly = "$packageName.dll"
# Set to #() to get the latest stable version.
$packageVersionArgs = '-v', '1.0.0-pre.4'
$projectFolder = 'assemblies' # Subfolder for the aux. project
$assemblyPath = "$PSScriptRoot/$projectFolder/bin/Release/*/publish/$assembly"
$literalAssemblyPath = Convert-Path -ErrorAction Ignore $assemblyPath
if ($literalAssemblyPath) {
Write-Verbose -vb "Package '$packageName' already installed. Loading main assembly: $literalAssemblyPath"
Add-Type -ErrorAction Stop -LiteralPath $literalAssemblyPath
}
else {
Write-Verbose -vb "Installing package '$packageName'..."
$null = Get-Command -ErrorAction Stop -CommandType Application dotnet
Push-Location (New-Item -ErrorAction Stop -Type Directory "$PSScriptRoot/$projectFolder")
$null = dotnet new classlib
$null = dotnet add package $packageName #packageVersionArgs
$null = dotnet publish -c Release
Pop-Location
Write-Verbose -vb "Loading main assembly: $assemblyPath"
Add-Type -ErrorAction Stop -Path $assemblyPath
}
# Instantiate a type from the package to verify that it was loaded.
"Listing property names of a [Terminal.Gui.Button] instance:"
[Terminal.Gui.Button]::new().psobject.Properties.Name
Caveat:
Some packages have dependencies on native libraries, which dotnet publish places in the runtimes subfolder tree of the publish folder, in platform-specific subfolders such as runtimes\win-x64\native.
In Windows PowerShell, Add-Type -LiteralPath (and its underlying .NET API method, [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom()) does find the platform-appropriate native library, but, curiously, it does not work as of PowerShell (Core) 7.2.0-preview.9 - at least as observed with version 5.0.9 of the Microsoft.Data.Sqlite NuGet package.
The workaround is to find the platform-appropriate native library in the runtimes subfolder tree and copy it directly into the publish folder. The install-on-demand Add-NuGetType helper function, discussed in this answer, automates this process.
ORIGINAL ANSWER
As stated, PowerShell v5+ - including PowerShell Core - comes with the PackageManagement module that is a meta package manager providing access to multiple repositories via providers; on-demand installation of this module is may be possible in v3 and v4 (this download is labeled "March 2016 Preview", and it is the most recent I could find).
Find-PackageProvider lists all available providers.
Get-PackageProvider lists installed ones.
It is the nuget provider that enables installation of Nuget packages via Install-Package, and there are two potential hurdles:
The nuget provider may not be installed.
It may be installed with an incorrect API URL that prevents Find-Package from returning results.
Test if the nuget provider is installed:
# If this fails, the provider isn't installed
Get-PackageProvider nuget
If it is installed: Verify that the package source URI is correct:
Open an elevated PowerShell session.
Run Get-PackageSource:
If you find a Nugettest source, remove it:
Unregister-PackageSource Nugettest
If the Location column for source nuget.org shows https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json (or something other than ttps://www.nuget.org/api/v2), update it:
Set-PackageSource nuget.org -NewLocation https://www.nuget.org/api/v2 -Trusted
Caveat: This may break the ability to browse NuGet packages in Visual Studio: see https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShellGet/issues/107
If it is not installed: Install the provider from scratch:
Open an elevated PowerShell session.
Run the following commands:
Install-PackageProvider nuget
Register-PackageSource -ProviderName nuget -name nuget.org -Location https://www.nuget.org/api/v2 -Trusted
After completing the above steps, discovery (e.g., Find-Package Dapper) and installation (e.g., Install-Package Dapper) of NuGet packages should succeed.
By default, Install-Package installs in the AllUsers scope, which requires elevation, but you can opt into installing in the context of the current user only with -Scope CurrentUser.
Using a downloaded NuGet package:
Note: See GitHub issue #6724, which suggests making the use of NuGet packages in PowerShell easier by extending Add-Type, which would obviate the need for all subsequent steps, which are still needed as of PowerShell Core 7.3.2.
As demonstrated in the question, you need to manually load the package's assemblies into your PowerShell session with Add-Type -Path <assembly-file-path>; however, in the era of .NET Core, packages may have DLLs for different .NET environments, so you cannot always blindly load all *.dll files in the package folder:
In order to discover the file-system location of a downloaded package, query the .Source property of the relevant object returned by Get-Package:
(Get-Package Dapper).Source
To see the full paths of all DLLs inside the package, run the following:
(Get-ChildItem -Filter *.dll -Recurse (Split-Path (Get-Package Dapper).Source)).FullName
Looking at the full DLL paths should tell you which DLL(s) are the right ones to load for your environment; using the example of the Dapper package:
C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\NuGet\Packages\Dapper.1.50.4\lib\net451\Dapper.dll
C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\NuGet\Packages\Dapper.1.50.4\lib\netstandard1.3\Dapper.dll
C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\NuGet\Packages\Dapper.1.50.4\lib\netstandard2.0\Dapper.dll
Given that .NET Standard DLLs run on all .NET platforms, however, you can programmatically look for the (latest) such DLLs and load them:
(Get-Item (Join-Path (Split-Path (Get-Package Dapper).Source) lib/netstandard*) |
Sort-Object { [version] ($_.Name -replace '^netstandard') })[-1] |
Get-ChildItem -Filter *.dll -Recurse |
ForEach-Object { Add-Type -LiteralPath $_.FullName }
The above looks for the highest available .NET Standard version DLLs; if you want to target a specific version, the command becomes easier; e.g., for .NET Standard 2.0:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.dll -LiteralPath (Join-Path (Split-Path (Get-Package Dapper).Source) lib/netstandard2.0) |
ForEach-Object { Add-Type -LiteralPath $_.FullName }
Are you using Powershell 5? Because if you are, it has a package management module:
It appears to be open source: https://github.com/OneGet
We have a PowerShell snapin that requires version 3.0 of PowerShell to function. So we used the following file element in a WiX (3.8) file:
<File Id="MySnapin.dll"
Name="MySnapin.dll"
Assembly=".net"
KeyPath="yes"
Vital="no"
Checksum="yes"
DiskId="1"
Source="$(var.FilesPath)\Bin\MySnapin.dll"
AssemblyApplication="MySnapin.dll">
<ps:SnapIn Id="MySnapin"
Description="This is a PowerShell snap-in"
Vendor="My Company Inc."
RequiredPowerShellVersion="3.0">
<ps:FormatsFile FileId="MySnapin.format.ps1xml" />
</ps:SnapIn>
</File>
However, when installing this the snapin cannot be found in powershell (Get-PSSnapIn -Registered). When examining the registry it turns out that the snapin has been registered in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\PowerShell\3\PowerShellSnapIns\MySnapin. But when running installutil.exe on the DLL, the registration ends up in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapIns\MySnapin, and powershell finds it properly. Is this a bug in WiX Toolset, or am I doing something wrong here?
Where are the registrations really supposed to go?
Yea this sounds like a bug, so you might want to report it to the WiX maintainers, but there is better way.
The recommended way to add cmdlets and functions is through PowerShell Modules. Snap-ins are the older way to extend PowerShell and while still supported are not recommended. If you do not need to support adding your cmdlets to older versions of PowerShell use a module.
Modules are somewhat easier to deploy than snap-ins. Basically you can put them anywhere, however if you want users to be able to load them by name they need to exist on the PSModulePath environment variable. Your installer would add your files and update the PSModulePath variable to include a Modules folder from your install folder. Then users will simply be able to call Import-Module MyModule to load them. Also, see the documentation on PSModulePath.
This blog post contains a detailed walkthrough of how to write a WiX installer to do this. It also has instructions on how to check that the required PowerShell version is installed. Basically, you are going to check the under both those registry keys you mentioned for the PowerShellEngine\PowerShellVersion value.
Is there a way to use PowerShell to view the contents of the GAC?
Another option is that the PowerShell Community Extensions installs a GAC provider, so you can do this:
dir gac:
If you are on PowerShell V2, be sure to grab the 1.2 Beta.
As stated in the docs:
Starting with the .NET Framework 4, the default location for the global assembly cache is %windir%\Microsoft.NET\assembly. In earlier versions of the .NET Framework, the default location is %windir%\assembly.
You may want to search in the appropriate subdir or even in both of them.
To list entries in the GAC;
gacutil -l
In powershell you could parse the text output of the above.
I don't know of a managed interface to inspect the GAC.
I had the same question. The question became more prominent with .Net 4.0 and there not being a Windows Explorer shell plugin available to view the contents. GacUtil works, but is not flexible enough and takes a lot to install. The PowerShell Community Extensions option is to limited in it's functionality and contains to many other CmdLets that I don't need. Therefore I've written my own PowerShell module to view and change the GAC. It can be found on http://powershellgac.codeplex.com
This project has moved to GitHub. You can now find it on:
https://github.com/LTruijens/powershell-gac
It can also be found in the PowerShell Gallery:
https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/Gac/1.0.1
# Show the assemblies in the GAC, including the file version
Get-GacAssembly SomeCompany* | Format-Table -View FileVersion
I successfully listed GAC using this code snippet:
New-PSDrive -Name HKCR -PSProvider 'Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry' -Root HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Get-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCR:\Installer\Assemblies\Global' | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty
Solution taken from here.
You can do it just from a command prompt:
cd C:\Windows\assembly
dir
The GAC has a specific directory structure, and you should not go moving or deleting things in there using the command prompt - rather use windows explorer (gui) or gacutil (cli)
If you want to search for a specific assembly in the GAC.
Also note, since MS has changed the GAC structure you can use the -Recurse option from the root to search all the GAC.
CD C:\Windows\assembly
ls -Recurse | ?{$_.Name -like "*log4net*"}