Failed to launch a customized dll that has WebView2 on it on WinForms

[brettlincalgary]

I have a WinForms User Control that has WebView2 on it. Let's call it A control and A.dll. And I have a WinForms Test App let's call it ATest, which will use A Control from A.dll.

I need to add A as a reference to ATest.

Everything works fines if I add A as a project reference. A.dll can be added on the Visual Studio Toolbox and A.dll can be launched and run successfully from ATest.

However, if I add A.dll as an individual dll reference, it can not be launched because the instance of WebView2.CoreWebView2 is always null. I googled a lot and it looks like the WebView2Loader.dll is not loaded.

However, I have installed Edge run time by installing the evergreen and I even tried to statically link the WebView2Loader.dll following this link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/how-to/static

But the problem remains.

I am using WebView2 1.0.1054.31 on .Net 4.7 framework. I tried both Visual Studio 2017, 2019 and 2022. The same problem.

I need to release A.dll which means that it has to be added as a DLL reference, not a project reference.

Thanks.

[champnic]

Hey @brettlincalgary - thanks for the question. To verify the loader isn't the issue, if you manually add the loader dll to your project folder does that fix it?

[brettlincalgary]

Thanks champnic.

If I manually copy WebView2Loader.dll to ATest->bin->Debug folder together with A.dll, it works.

However there is still a problem. When I release the A.dll, I can create a msi file which installs A.dll together with WebView2Loader.dll into
C:\Program Files (x86)\A folder.

When the users add A.dll into the Visual Studio toolbar from ATest project, and drag its control to a Form, only A.dll will be automatically added to the Reference and
then copied to ATest->bin->Debug folder, the WebView2Loader.dll is not referred or copied, which will cause the launch failed. It looks the only fix will be manually copy the WebView2Loader.dll.

Plus, it looks to me that WebView2Loader.dll is a c++ dll which cannot be embedded into my A.dll which is a C# dll.

Is there any way to make the WebView2Loader.dll the dependency of A.dll so that when the control inside A.dll got dragged to a Form, both
A.dll and WebView2Loader.dll will be referred and copied automatically?

Thanks again.