How to solve problems with AppxPackaging.dll (Windows App Certification Kit)?

We receive the follow error message on building an UWP application.

Task 'ValidateAppxManifest' failed. Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {5842A140-FF9F-4166-8F5C-62F5B7B0C781} failed due to the following error: 8007045a A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007045A).

{5842A140-FF9F-4166-8F5C-62F5B7B0C781} pointed to AppxPackaging.dll. The registry HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5842a140-ff9f-4166-8f5c-62f5b7b0c781}\InProcServer32 exists.

The build system is a docker with Windows Server Core and Visual Studio 2017.

How can I receive more information over the underlying problem?

Which components must be installed that the "Windows App Certification Kit" is work?

The AppxPackaging is part of the Windows Kits installation of the SDK. The error hints at a missing dependency.

We used procmon (eg. choco install procmon) to try to find out which dependency that was. You have to set a filter in Path contains Appx and run the build job.

Note: if the build job runs in a Docker Container as you described you have to run procmon on the host, not the container.

The process list filled up with a lot of information up to the point the AppxPackaging.dll is loaded. It then stated, that a AppxSip.dll was looked up at the Path destinations, but was not found (Result: NAME NOT FOUND). So we checked the system for this dll.

We did find a corresponding file in the Windows Kits subfolder C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.17134.0\x86 and added this path the the $env:Path environment. Then it worked out.