How to add a PSCmdlet or PSSnapin to hosted Powershell runtime without installing the snapin

Question

My scenario is as follows.

• I am uploading my dll through web UI.
• I am hosting a PowerShell runspace in an ASP.NET application.
• I The DLL contains the PSCmdlet and would like to make use of it.
• The PSCmdlet only needs to be accessible within the hosted runspace and does not need to be used in any external scenario.
• The application does not have access to the windows registry as it runs with limited privileges, so I cannot install the PsSnapin.

Is it possible for me to use the commandlet without going through the installation process?

Answer 1

If your use case is straightforward then it is possible. Please see these question: Hosted PowerShell cannot see Cmdlets in the same Assembly. Several answers there provide different ways, choose one that works better or you like more.

Answer 2

If you use PowerShell V2 you can use an unregistered snapin as a binary module.

Import-Module ‹path-to-dll›

add a -passthru to get the PSModuleInfo reference which describes the module.