Drag and drop a DLL to the GAC assembly in windows server 2008 net 4 0

Question

I ve trying to deploy some code to a client machine  where I don t want to install MS windows SDK tools   This means  don t have access to  gacutil    I also have not created an installer for my code   It seems that these might be the only two options in  net 4 0   In the past I would simply go to start  run  type  assembly   and drag and drop my dll in   Is this no longer possible   When I try to do this I get no error message  but the dll doesn t appear in the  assembly  folder   When I use gacutil on my dev machine it works properly  but the dll still doesn t appear

User · Accepted Answer

In  net 4 0 Microsoft removed the ability to add DLLs to the Assembly simply by dragging and dropping   Instead you need to use gacutil exe  or create an installer to do it   Microsoft actually doesn   t recommend using gacutil  but I went that route anyway   To use gacutil on a development machine go to  Start - gt  programs - gt  Microsoft Visual studio 2010 - gt  Visual Studio Tools - gt  Visual Studio Command Prompt  2010   Then use these commands to uninstall and Reinstall respectively   Note I did NOT include  dll in the uninstall command  gacutil  u myDLL gacutil  i  C  Program Files Custom myDLL dll   To use Gacutil on a non-development machine you will have to copy the executable and config file from your dev machine to the production machine   It looks like there are a few different versions of Gacutil   The one that worked for me  I found here  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft SDKs Windows v7 0A Bin NETFX 4 0 Tools gacutil exe C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft SDKs Windows v7 0A Bin NETFX 4 0 Tools gacutil exe config  Copy the files here or to the appropriate  net folder  C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319  Then use these commands to uninstall and reinstall respectively  C  Users BHJeremy Desktop Installing to the Gac in  net 4 0 gacutil exe   u  myDLL    C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319 gacutil exe   i  C  Program Files Custom myDLL dll

User · Answer

Keep in mind that the Fusion API is unmanaged   The current reference for it is here  Development Guide   Unmanaged API Reference   Fusion  However  there is a managed method to add an assembly to GAC  System EnterpriseServices Internal Publish GacInstall And  if you need to register any Types  System EnterpriseServices Internal Publish RegisterAssembly  The reference for the publish class is here   NET Framework Class Library   System EnterpriseServices Namespaces   System EnterpriseServices Internal  However  these methods were designed for installing components that are required by a web service application such as ASP NET or WCF   As a result they don t register the assemblies with Fusion  thus  they can be uninstalled by other applications  or using gacutil and cause your assembly to stop working   So  if you use them outside of a web server where an administrator is managing the GAC then be sure to add a reference to your application in SOFTWARE Wow6432Node Microsoft Fusion References  for 64-bit OS  or SOFTWARE Microsoft Fusion References  for 32-bit OS  so that nobody can remove your support assemblies unless they uninstall your application

User · Answer

Other alternatives to an installer and gacutil are GUI tools like Gac Manager or GACAdmin  Or if you like PowerShell you could use PowerShell GAC from which I am the author

User · Answer

if you have neccessary  net framework installed  Ex    Net 4 0 or  Net 3 5  then you can just copy Gacutil exe from any of the machine and to the new machine    1  Open CMD as adminstrator in new server  2  Traverse to the folder where you copied the Gacutil exe  For eg - C  program files  in my case    3  Type the below in the cmd prompt and install      C  Program Files gacutil exe  I  dllname

User · Answer

In may case  I nedded to copy the gacutil exe  gacutil exe config AND ALSO the gacutlrc dll  from the 1033 directory

User · Answer

The gacutil utility is not available on client machines  and the Window SDK license forbids redistributing it to your customers  When your customer can not  will not   and really should not  download the 300MB Windows SDK as part of your application s install process   There is an officially supported API you  or your installer  can use to register an assembly in the global assembly cache  Microsoft s Windows Installer technology knows how to call this API for you  You would have to consult your MSI installer utility  e g  WiX  InnoSetup  for their own syntax of how to indicate you want an assembly to be registered in the Global Assembly Cache   But MSI  and gacutil  are doing nothing special  They simply call the same API you can call yourself  For documentation on how to register an assembly through code  see      KB317540  DOC  Global Assembly Cache  GAC  APIs Are Not Documented in the  NET Framework Software Development Kit  SDK  Documentation   var IAssemblyCache assemblyCache  CreateAssemblyCache ref assemblyCache  0     String manifestPath    D  Program Files Contoso Frobber Grob dll    FUSION INSTALL REFERENCE refData  refData cbSize   SizeOf refData     The size of the structure in bytes refData dwFlags   0    Reserved  must be zero refData guidScheme   FUSION REFCOUNT FILEPATH GUID    The assembly is referenced by an application that is represented by a file in the file system  The szIdentifier field is the path to this file  refData szIdentifier    D  Program Files Contoso Frobber SuperGrob exe     A unique string that identifies the application that installed the assembly refData szNonCannonicalData    Super cool grobber 9000     A string that is only understood by the entity that adds the reference  The GAC only stores this string    Add a new assembly to the GAC     The assembly must be persisted in the file system and is copied to the GAC  assemblyCache InstallAssembly        IASSEMBLYCACHE INSTALL FLAG FORCE REFRESH    The files of an existing assembly are overwritten regardless of their version number       manifestPath    A string pointing to the dynamic-linked library  DLL  that contains the assembly manifest  Other assembly files must reside in the same directory as the DLL that contains the assembly manifest        refData     More documentation before the KB article is deleted      The fields of the structure are defined as follows          cbSize - The size of the structure in bytes    dwFlags - Reserved  must be zero    guidScheme - The entity that adds the reference    szIdentifier - A unique string that identifies the application that installed the assembly    szNonCannonicalData - A string that is only understood by the entity that adds the reference  The GAC only stores this string          Possible values for the guidScheme field can be one of the following       FUSION REFCOUNT MSI GUID - The assembly is referenced by an application that has been installed by using Windows Installer  The szIdentifier field is set to MSI  and szNonCannonicalData is set to Windows Installer  This scheme must only be used by Windows Installer itself    FUSION REFCOUNT UNINSTALL SUBKEY GUID - The assembly is referenced by an application that appears in Add Remove Programs  The szIdentifier field is the token that is used to register the application with Add Remove programs    FUSION REFCOUNT FILEPATH GUID - The assembly is referenced by an application that is represented by a file in the file system  The szIdentifier field is the path to this file        FUSION REFCOUNT OPAQUE STRING GUID - The assembly is referenced by an application that is only represented by an opaque string  The szIdentifier is this opaque string  The GAC does not perform existence checking for opaque references when you remove this

User · Answer

You can also just copy the file to GAC using a command prompt   I use the following batch script to copy the DLL and restart IIS   copy  b v y  PathToAssembly MyAssembly dll   C  Windows assembly    iisreset  noforce pause   Saves the need to use or install gacutil

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