C# System.Management has only 1 class?

Question

I have been trying to utilize WMI for my code, I cannot use the System.Management classes as they are not there. I have tried it on 3.5 and 4 Net. Nothing works. I have not found any solutions to the issue and was wondering if any of you have ever encountered this? If so, why is it that i only have:

System.Management.Instrumentation

My using block below:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Management;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Permissions;
using Microsoft.Win32;
using System.Collections;
using System.Management.Instrumentation;

Info:

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Using net 3.5 - Net 4.

Not sure what I am missing here.

On top of what Jon Skeet said, make sure you are not using the client profile. — Jonathan Dickinson, Oct 01 '11 at 19:22

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 01 '11 at 18:37

4

System.Management.Instrumentation isn't a class, it's a namespace. Given the using directives you've got, if you've got a reference to System.Management.dll, you should be able to write code such as:

ObjectQuery query = new ObjectQuery("...");

answered Oct 01 '11 at 18:37

Jon Skeet

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Andy · Answer 2 · 2011-10-02T15:11:03.473

1

Did you add a reference to System.Management? Also make sure the framework version you're targeting isn't the Client Profile.

edited Oct 02 '11 at 15:11

answered Oct 01 '11 at 18:35

Andy

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 01 '11 at 18:36

MSDN lists quite a lot of classes under the System.Management.Instrumentation namespace:

DefaultManagementInstaller Class
DefaultManagementProjectInstaller Class
IEvent Interface
IgnoreMemberAttribute Class
IInstance Interface
Instance Class
InstanceNotFoundException Class
Instrumentation Class
InstrumentationBaseException Class
InstrumentationClassAttribute Class
InstrumentationException Class
InstrumentationManager Class
InstrumentationType Enumeration
InstrumentedAttribute Class
ManagedCommonProvider Class
ManagedNameAttribute Class
ManagementBindAttribute Class
ManagementCommitAttribute Class
ManagementConfigurationAttribute Class
ManagementConfigurationType Enumeration
ManagementCreateAttribute Class
ManagementEntityAttribute Class
ManagementEnumeratorAttribute Class
ManagementHostingModel Enumeration
ManagementInstaller Class
ManagementKeyAttribute Class
ManagementMemberAttribute Class
ManagementNameAttribute Class
ManagementNewInstanceAttribute Class
ManagementProbeAttribute Class
ManagementQualifierAttribute Class
ManagementQualifierFlavors Enumeration
ManagementReferenceAttribute Class
ManagementRemoveAttribute Class
ManagementTaskAttribute Class
WmiConfigurationAttribute Class
WmiProviderInstallationException Class

These live in System.Management.dll - make sure you add a reference to it.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 01 '11 at 18:36

I believe you need to add references to System.Management.*.dll files.

If you come from a C++ background like me I'm guessing you have the same conceptual issue I had in the past when I took the view of using statements in c# as analogous to include statements in C/C++. It's a subtle difference but it led me to years of very slight confusion that finally cleared up when I got a hold of reflector a few years ago...

Jeremy McGee · Answer 5 · 2011-10-01T19:05:07.890

Right-click on the References folder for the project, then choose Add Reference... and from the .NET tab choose System.Management.dll. (You may have to wait a short while for the DLL to appear, this list is lazily-loaded.)

Also, make sure in Project Properties that you're not targetting the .NET Framework Client Profile: you'll most likely need the full .NET Framework 4.0.

Why do you see anything at all without doing this? Rather confusingly there isn't necessarily a one-to-one relationship between assemblies and namespaces in the .NET libraries.

So, even if you don't include a reference to the System.Management.dll assembly, you will still see one class in the System.Management namespace -- this is included in one of the other assemblies you've referenced already, or the system core assembly itself.

You can try this trick yourself by adding your own class to the System.Management namespace:

namespace System.Management
{
   public class MyClass
   {
   }
}

This will end up in the assembly named in your project properties, but will belong to the namespace System.Management.

Note, it gets terribly confusing to break the relationship between namespace names and assembly names, so don't!

This answer nicely explains why the problem exists, but not how to solve it. — Merlyn Morgan-Graham, Oct 01 '11 at 19:03

C# System.Management has only 1 class?

5 Answers5