What are Side-by-side Assemblies?
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20-09-2019 - |
Question
I came across Side-by-side Assemblies for the first time today while trying to install a Debug install set to a test machine. I managed it in the end, but was left with several questions:
- Whare are Side-by-side assemblies?
- How does Windows deal with these assemblies differently from other assemblies
- How do applications depending on Side-by-side assemblies deal with these differently from normal assemblies
- Under what situations might someone want to create a Side-by-side assembly?
Solution
A starting point for understanding side-by-side assemblies and what they're for would probably be the "Isolated Applications and Side-by-Side Assemblies" reference on MSDN.
Essentially, side-by-side assemblies are a way to ensure that a given application will always use a specific version of a DLL, particularly Windows system DLLs (such as the Common Controls), no matter the Service Packs, Updates or new applications installed after it.
Other links of interest:
OTHER TIPS
Side-by-side assemblies are collection of resources available at runtime. They may be collection of dlls, classes, type libraries or interfaces. An applicfation with all components as side-by-side assemblies is called an isolated application.
Side-by-side assemblies provide a way for implementing multiple dlls in one assembly