probing assemblies

Question

Few years ago I've developed a windows service app (VB.NET framework 1.1) which was using the System.Data.OracleClient to access an Oracle database.
Since that driver has given me lots of troubles I wanted to reference the oracle dataprovider (Oracle.DataAccess.dll) which works much better.
On my PC everything works fine.
The problem is when I try to publish my app on the server (windows 2000).
I can't install the new oracle data provider on that server and there is an old installation of oracle 9.0 (my app references oracle 9.2).
I've copied (no installation) the entire directory (C:\oracle\ora92\bin) from my pc to the server but I don't know how to reference the Oracle data provider. I know that is not an "clean" way to do things but I don't have the possibility to install new software.
I've seen that if I copy my app (and all the files) in the C:\oracle\ora92\bin folder everything works fine.
I would like to specify that directory as a probing directory of my application. I've tried different solutions found on the web but none of them seem to work.

I would like to set a folder at runtime or in my config file so that my app can use the assemblies there (and all the dependencies).

I can upgrade my app for the framework 2.0.

Thanks

Alberto

Answer 1

Do it the other way around - put the Oracle assemblies into your application's root. Or even better - put the assemblies into the GAC on the server. the utility used for that (gacutil) should run on the server just fine.

maybe this could help you: C#: Custom assembly directory

if everything else fails, you could subscribe to the AssemblyResolve event of the AppDomain:

Assembly Resolve