Website alternative to bin folder for assemblies?

Question

In context of an ASP.NET Website project, is it possible to create a second location where DLLs will be picked up from, in addition to the regular bin/ location and apart from the GAC? I expect such a feature would be made possible by the configuration.

Answer 1

You can use the codeBase element - it allows you to specify URL of an assmebly (which can be a FILE: URL), though it does require the assembly to be strongly named.

See this article describing this and another method (using the AssemblyResolve event which fires whenever the assembly loader fails to find an assembly).