Deploying Assemblies into the GAC

When you possess an assembly with a strong name, you can deploy that assembly inside of the Global Assembly Cache. There are three ways to accomplish the actual deployment:

  • You can build an install package and run it through the Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0. Because this version of the Windows Installer is aware of the GAC, it has the capability to publish components into it.

  • You can manually or programmatically push an assembly into the GAC by using the command-line tool Gacutil.exe.

  • You can manually copy an assembly into the GAC by using Windows Explorer and the shell extension called the Assembly Cache Viewer.

Let's walk through the last two options (for more information on creating installation packages ...

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