UnManaged - Non-Com Dynamic Linked Libraries

[Mythran]

I have a freeware UnManaged - Non-Com DLL I want to use. Basically, in a perfect
world, I would like to embed this library into a VB.Net class library (managed),
strong name it and store it into the gac. Now, the installer would just need to
install this VB.Net library into the GAC w/o the unmanaged dll (because it would
be embedded into the managed dll thus wouldn't need to install the 3rd party as a
separate file.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Mythran

 

[Bob Powell [MVP]]

You can create a wrapper DLL for it which can be installed in the GAC and
the unmanaged DLL can be placed anywhere that it will be found using a
standard executable path search.

I don't know about embedding the unmanaged DLL. The DLLImport attribute only
deals with file names.

--
Bob Powell

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[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

I have a freeware UnManaged - Non-Com DLL I want to use. Basically, in a perfect
world, I would like to embed this library into a VB.Net class library (managed),
strong name it and store it into the gac. Now, the installer would just need to
install this VB.Net library into the GAC w/o the unmanaged dll (because it would
be embedded into the managed dll thus wouldn't need to install the 3rd party as a
separate file.

AFAIK this won't work with a native DLL. If it was a .NET DLL, the
ILLink tool would do the job, but in your case you will have to do it
like Bob describes...