When to use the GAC?

[David Veeneman]

I am preparing to deploy a couple of custom controls. Should I deploy the
control dll files to the GAC? Some third party controls deploy there, but
other packages deploy to the Program Files folder. How do I decide which of
the two locations to deploy to?

I've been over the MSDN documentation on signing assemblies and installing
in the GAC, and it doesn't look like deploying to it would be a big deal.
Are there reasons I wouldn't want to deploy to the GAC? Any reasons I
wouldn't want to deploy to the Program Files folder? Thanks

David Veeneman
Foresight Systems

 

[jpuopolo]

David:

In general, put them in the GAC if the classes in the DLLs are to be
shared by more than one component or program.

If the classes are completely private to your components or
applications, deploy them along with your other app files in the target
installation directory.

Hope this helps...

John

 

[jpuopolo]

David:

In general, put them in the GAC if the classes in the DLLs are to be
shared by more than one component or program.

If the classes are completely private to your components or
applications, deploy them along with your other app files in the target
installation directory.

Hope this helps...

jpuopolo

 

[Mark Rae]

How do I decide which of the two locations to deploy to?

The 'G' in the acronym GAC represents 'global', and that's the clue.

If your assembly is to be available to any app installed on the machine,
then put it in the GAC, otherwise leave it in its own app's \bin folder.