Wine-Mono does not warn/error about running dotnet5+ binaries.

[Fox2Code]

According to https://github.com/madewokherd/wine-mono/issues/15#issuecomment-2107551161 dotnet5+ is out of scope of Wine-Mono.

But Wine-Mono does not warn or error out when loading dotnet5 software, a message like this should be enough:

Warning: Wine-Mono detected you are running dotnet5+ software, Wine-Mono only support up to dotnet4.
Warning: Do not report any issues related to this software to Wine or Wine-Mono when running this software with Wine-Mono.
Warning: Please install Microsoft dotnet5+ to run dotnet5+ software.

This is very important to make it clear Wine-Mono does not support dotnet5+

[Fox2Code]

Example of dotnet5+ software: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download

[madewokherd]

In reply to https://github.com/madewokherd/wine-mono/issues/196#issuecomment-2204141994

There have been many issues caused by shipped libraries that reference things that don't exist, where .NET Framework detects they are unused and doesn't care, while Mono fails to detect this. My guess in this case is that the whole "Windows.Foundation.UniversalApiContract" library is unused by the Minecraft installer, and Mono doesn't detect this.

[madewokherd]

Another possibility: .NET Framework may have special handling of winmd-type dll's that ignores the actual code (and references) inside the dll.

[madewokherd]

From my own testing (based on modules loaded in the process on Windows), I know the Minecraft installer runs in .NET Framework. There's no "wrong detection" and no chance of that as the way Framework and Core load is completely different. .NET Core projects include an unmanaged executable that loads the .NET Core runtime (see for example the .NET 8 builds at https://github.com/madewokherd/xalia/releases/tag/xalia-0.4.2). .NET Framework executables instead reference mscoree which loads Wine Mono.

I don't know how you could get a .NET Core project to load in Wine Mono even if you wanted to.

[Fox2Code]

Well, it's dotnet4 but expect dotnet5 stuff

[Fox2Code]

I'm trying to think about this and it doesn't make a lot of sense, maybe bundling dotnet core with wine-mono for the GAC libraries and UWP apps could help?

Like I'm thinking Wine-Mono is installed by default on Wine, and since dotnet core is opensource, I don't think this would be an issue to bundle it in some way...

[madewokherd]

We wouldn't be able to run the libraries in Mono.

[Fox2Code]

You said #151 was dotnet5+ the dlls says they are dotnet5+ but loaded fine by Wine-Mono, and fails when executed at some point.

Does that means #151 is a dotnet4 API marked as dotnet5 on the wiki?

Something is definitely wrong here.

[madewokherd]

There's no check upon loading a dll that the APIs it references are valid.

[Fox2Code]

You told me Minecraft Installer is dotnet4, but Minecraft Installer require both #196 and #151

Either the Minecraft installer is dotnet5+ but still loaded by wine-mono for some reason, or both #196 and #151 are dotnet4 and need to be reopenned.

[madewokherd]

I'm not going to continue arguing with you. Feel free to write tests cases for those possibilities. If they succeed then you have your answer.

To me it's not worth the effort. We'll most likely need .winmd support in any case, and when that's done we'll be in a better position to understand the rest of it.

[Fox2Code]

I think I agree we need more tests and code somewhere else, I'll come back when both winmd files are supported in wine and I have more useful info about the issue.

I'm so sorry for making you spend more time than necessary on this so early while we don't have the necessary info to progress.

Also for everything in Wine-Mono, you don't owe anything to anyone, I'm thankful for everything you have done already.