Shared Assembly Deployment

The Assembly Cache is a directory where the CLR looks for shared, side-by-side assemblies. The term “side-by-side” means that multiple versions of the same component may reside within the assembly cache along side one another. The GAC contains shared assemblies that are globally accessible to all .NET applications on the machine. There is also a download assembly cache that is accessible to applications such as Internet Explorer that automatically download assemblies over the network.

Deploying a Shared Assembly

Before an assembly can be deployed into the GAC, you must first digitally sign the assembly as discussed in a previous section. Developers can then place the assembly into the GAC by using either the Global ...

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