Deployment of Third-Party Assemblies to GAC

[Robert E. Flaherty]

I'm in the process of converting a VB6.0 collection of programs to C# 3.5.
The new applications use Crystal Reports 2008, FarPoint spread and some
Telerilk controls.

The suite of applications are used by both my local client plus a few other
client in other parts of the country. Therefore, the ablitiy to provide a
reliable method to upgrade and bug fixs is important.

My current thinking (or maybe just hope) is to have a Widows installer to
install the Crystal Reports, FarPoint spread and Telerik assemblies to a
client's GAC. The frequency of updating any of these assemblies would be
much less than the upgrading of my applicaiton assemblies.

I trust if this is possbile, than I could use ClickOnce as a deployment
method for my assemblies.

My first question is: Is this approach doable and reasonable?

My second question is: If the answer to the first question 'Yes", than how
does one create a Windows Installer to the GAC for these third-party
assemblies? Is it possible to include the vendor's product key in the
Windows Installer? (When a run the Crystal Report distribution run-time on a
client machine, it asks for my product key. I am just not comformable
passing out my product keys to clients.)

 

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

I'm in the process of converting a VB6.0 collection of programs to C#
3.5. The new applications use Crystal Reports 2008, FarPoint spread
and some Telerilk controls.

The suite of applications are used by both my local client plus a few
other client in other parts of the country. Therefore, the ablitiy
to provide a reliable method to upgrade and bug fixs is important.

My current thinking (or maybe just hope) is to have a Widows
installer to install the Crystal Reports, FarPoint spread and Telerik
assemblies to a client's GAC. The frequency of updating any of these
assemblies would be much less than the upgrading of my applicaiton
assemblies.

I trust if this is possbile, than I could use ClickOnce as a
deployment method for my assemblies.

My first question is: Is this approach doable and reasonable?

My second question is: If the answer to the first question 'Yes",
than how does one create a Windows Installer to the GAC for these
third-party assemblies? Is it possible to include the vendor's
product key in the Windows Installer? (When a run the Crystal Report
distribution run-time on a client machine, it asks for my product
key. I am just not comformable passing out my product keys to
clients.)

Microsoft's guidelines for the GAC are clear: don't add an assembly to
the GAC unless you really REALLY have to. The best way is to deploy
local to the application using them, even if you have two applications
using the same dlls.

FB

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Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
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