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CsWin32 is built as a source generator, which has the limitation that its generated code cannot be seen by other source generators. This means types that cswin32 generates (e.g. HRESULT) can't be used in things like P/Invoke source generation and cswin32 itself can't generate code that uses attributes which trigger other source generators.

This is especially problematic for trying to use cswin32 in Native AOT because we cannot use runtime marshaling, and so all of the ComImport-generated code that cswin32 produces does not work. Thus far, anyone wanting to use cswin32 in NAOT has to set allowMarshaling:false and use cswin32 in blittable mode, which is not very friendly.

This change does 2 things:

  1. Adds a tool and build task which triggers cswin32 code generation at build time instead of as a source generator. This enables it to generate code that uses other source generators.
  2. Adds a mode to cswin32 which tells it to generate code that produces [LibraryImport] instead of [DllImport] and [GeneratedComInterface] instead of [ComImport].

The build task & CsWin32Generator.exe tool

The build task is a simple ToolTask wrapper which takes its properties and passes them along to the CsWin32Generator tool. The build task is netstandard2.0-targeted to minimize dependencies and enable it to work in msbuild and dotnet environments.

The CsWin32Generator is a net9 AnyCPU dotnet tool, since we know that anyone using cswin32 must have dotnet SDK on their machine and AnyCPU is much easier to package and run in the existing pipeline.

Because CsWin32Generator runs against net9, I updated the core CsWin32 itself to be multi-targeted so that the existing source generator is still netstandard but in the exe tool it runs net9. I also did this because for a while I was going to compile the tool as AOT but that proved to be more trouble than it was worth.

Updates to cswin32 itself.

The main idea of the change is that when running as a build task, we change our generated code to produce [GeneratedComInterface] instead of [ComImport]. Of course, it's not that simple since the source generators have different limitations/behaviors (some documented, others not).

The "allowMarshaling:true" mode which is the default, is the default for the build task. Conceptually we are using marshaling via source generators instead of the runtime. You can also set "allowMarshaling:false" to produce a fully blittable projection, but the point of this change is to enable the friendly marshaling mode in AOT.

Lots of changes needed to bridge the gaps.

  • Com generators don't support InterfaceIsDual so any such interfaces need a [GeneratedComInterface] IDispatch to derive from. We generate one with placeholder vtable entries when needed.
  • .NET Runtime has lots of automatic marshalling, including for enums and even structs with managed fields. [GeneratedComInterface] makes you be super explicit. In this change I have added an enum marshaler and a C#/WinRT type marshaler that are generated per-type when needed by the code generator and they are passed in [MarshalUsing(…)] attributes.
  • I have not added a non-blittable struct marshaler yet. All structs with managed fields are forced to generate blittable entries. (e.g. instead of fields being object they would be unsafe IUnknown*). Thankfully cswin32 has a way to request that unmanaged versions of types get emitted even when allowMarshaling=true.
  • IPropertyValue is a private type in C#/WinRT so when compiling against that projection, we have to translate that type to [MarshalAs(Interface)] object.
  • .NET Runtime allowed unmanaged delegates to have marshaling on their parameters, like in/out/ref. When runtime marshaling is disabled, unmanaged delegates cannot have any marshaling. I changed cswin32 to generate pointer-typed parameters and updated the calling code to use fixed blocks instead (the friendly methods can still have out).
  • ComImport let you have a property instead of get_Foo & put_Foo methods. GeneratedComInterface does not. We turn off property generation in sourcegenerators mode.
  • For derived COM interfaces, ComImport made you declare all your base types and re-declare all the derived interfaces. GeneratedComInterface fixes this and you just declare your one base interface and only the new methods introduced on the interface.

Testing

I've written an extensive set of unit tests which run the cswin32generator tool, and using CSharpCompilation and CSharpGeneratorDriver, compile the generated code and verify that it has no warnings/diagnostics.

These new tests generate the entire Win32Metadata surface area using this new mode and it compiles. All the interesting cases I have turned into smaller test cases that take less time to run.

@jevansaks jevansaks force-pushed the user/jevansaks/comgenerators branch 3 times, most recently from 8e3d136 to 28f8d3d Compare October 6, 2025 19:51
…work previously with interop between CsWin32 and C#/WinRT.
@jevansaks jevansaks force-pushed the user/jevansaks/comgenerators branch from 28f8d3d to e339f4d Compare October 6, 2025 20:35
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First batch of comments, focusing on the infra rather than Cswin32 changes.

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All done with the tests and infra... next time I'll review CsWin32 itself. :)

@jevansaks jevansaks force-pushed the user/jevansaks/comgenerators branch from fa5c412 to 7735acb Compare October 13, 2025 23:51
@jevansaks jevansaks merged commit a723f70 into main Oct 15, 2025
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@jevansaks jevansaks deleted the user/jevansaks/comgenerators branch October 15, 2025 00:15
craigktreasure pushed a commit to craigktreasure/StartMenuCleaner that referenced this pull request Oct 25, 2025
Updated
[Microsoft.Windows.CsWin32](https://github.com/microsoft/CsWin32) from
0.3.205 to 0.3.228.

<details>
<summary>Release notes</summary>

_Sourced from [Microsoft.Windows.CsWin32's
releases](https://github.com/microsoft/CsWin32/releases)._

## 0.3.228

## What's Changed
* BuildTask mode should not generate types from InternalsVisibleTo
referenced assemblies by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1492
* CsWin32 build task fixes for NET8/CSharp12 by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1498
* Fix platform case sensitivity issue with CsWin32Generator tool by
@​jevansaks in microsoft/CsWin32#1499
* Update documentation for CsWin32RunAsBuildTask mode by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1497
* ArrayPool can be larger than requested resulting in freeing
uninitialized GCHandles by @​jlaanstra in
microsoft/CsWin32#1405
* Fix analyzer test break in devdiv AzDO account by @​AArnott in
microsoft/CsWin32#1504

## New Contributors
* @​jlaanstra made their first contribution in
microsoft/CsWin32#1405

**Full Changelog**:
microsoft/CsWin32@v0.3.217...v0.3.228

https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Windows.CsWin32/0.3.228

## 0.3.217

## What's Changed
* Add cswin32 mode to generate [GeneratedComInterface] and
[LibraryImport] code by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1474
* Handle UnauthorizedAccessException in new ComTests by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1486
* Project byte* parameters as Span<byte> by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1488
* Fix nuspec to refer to only signed files and drop apphost.exe from the
nuget by @​jevansaks in microsoft/CsWin32#1489


**Full Changelog**:
microsoft/CsWin32@v0.3.213...v0.3.217

## 0.3.213

## What's Changed
* Retarget to roslyn for VS 2022 Update 14 by @​AArnott in
microsoft/CsWin32#1466
* .NET targeting projects should reference
`Microsoft.Windows.SDK.NET.Ref` instead by @​AArnott in
microsoft/CsWin32#1471
* Update win32metadata version to 65.0.8-preview by @​jevansaks in
microsoft/CsWin32#1469
* Update dependency Microsoft.Build.NoTargets to 3.7.134 by
@​renovate[bot] in microsoft/CsWin32#1461


**Full Changelog**:
microsoft/CsWin32@v0.3.205...v0.3.213

Commits viewable in [compare
view](microsoft/CsWin32@v0.3.205...v0.3.228).
</details>

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4 participants