Windows assembly gac folder

NET Framework 4. NET Framework 1. NET Framework 2. NET Framework 3. If you are working with applications belongings to these versions then this is the place for your Global Assembly Cache. After CLR version 4. You'll find the various types of assemblies divided up into their bit, bit, or MSIL subdirectories under that folder. There is no shell extension for CLR4's gac, so you're looking at the actual place on disk where the assemblies live. The way that I always programmatically detect what versions of the.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Where is the location of GAC? Ask Question. Asked 8 years, 2 months ago. Active 1 year, 11 months ago. Viewed 65k times. How can I reliably find it and why would it be anywhere but where it's supposed to be? Improve this question. The global assembly cache GAC stores assemblies that several applications share. Install an assembly into the global assembly cache with one of the following components:.

You can install only strong-named assemblies into the global assembly cache. For information about how to create a strong-named assembly, see How to: Sign an assembly with a strong name. Windows Installer , the Windows installation engine, is the recommended way to add assemblies to the global assembly cache.

Windows Installer provides reference counting of assemblies in the global assembly cache and other benefits. You can use the. Each computer where the Common Language Runtime is installed has a machine-wide code cache called the Global Assembly Cache. The Global Assembly Cache stores assemblies specifically designated to be shared by several applications on the computer.

You should share assemblies by installing them into the Global Assembly Cache only when you need to. As a general guideline, keep assembly dependencies private, and locate assemblies in the application directory unless sharing an assembly is explicitly required.

In addition, it is not necessary to install assemblies into the Global Assembly Cache to make them accessible to COM interop or unmanaged code.

There are scenarios where you explicitly do not want to install an assembly into the Global Assembly Cache. If you place one of the assemblies that make up an application in the Global Assembly Cache, you can no longer replicate or install the application by using the xcopy command to copy the application directory. You must move the assembly in the Global Assembly Cache as well.