How to manually add reference to runtime component?

Question

Hi,

Rather than add a project reference to a runtime component I need to manually add the reference to the binaries.

To test I created a "do nothing" runtime component and a blank XAML app.  In the constructor for the app I added:

using namespace RuntimeComponent1; <-- added
MainPage::MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
        Class1 c; <-- added
}

When a project reference is added everything works fine.  So I removed the reference and copied the runtime component winmd file to another location, and then added a reference to that.  It all compiles and I see the runtime component winmd and pri file in the output folder, but when I run the app I get error 0x80040154 (class not registered).  I also included the DLL as a content type but that didn't resolve the issue.

Thanks for the help, greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Can you please explain more clearly what you are trying to do and why?

It sounds like you are trying to mix a normal DLL and a runtime component DLL, but the details and goal aren't clear.

Answer 2

Hi Rob,

Sorry it all wasn't clear.  In my app I want to add a reference to a Windows runtime component (written in C++) but I don't want to add it via a project reference.  So I'm trying to find out how I go about adding it directly hence I tried adding a reference to the winmd file.

Since my last post I've been doing some digging and have found that Visual studio behaves differently in the two scenarios:

when the app is configured with a project reference visual studio adds an entry under HKCU\Software\Classes\ActivatableClasses\Package\{my package guid}\ActivatableClassId\{MyRuntimeComponent}

when the app is configured with a direct reference to the winmd file visual studio doesn't add the entry so GetFactory (within vcwinrt.cpp) fails.  

So how can I get visual studio to still add this entry?

Thanks

Answer 3

Found the solution thanks to this post:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17864054/how-to-package-a-windows-runtime-component-for-distribution

The important bit:

"A component built with C++ provides separate .winmd and .dll files, and the DLL is what contains the details to register the component.

<Reference Include="component">
  <HintPath>component.winmd</HintPath>
  <IsWinMDFile>true</IsWinMDFile>
  <Implementation>component.dll</Implementation>
</Reference>"

Manually editing the proj file and adding an Implementation tag fixes the issue!