Problem adding assembly to the GAC

Question

Hi all I'm new both to this forum and C# in general :) Not sure if this belongs here or in the Deployment forum but here goes. I have an assembly that I want to add to the GAC so I can use it in multiple projects. I have successfully given my assembly a strong name and used gacutil to add the dll to the GAC. If I run gacutil /l the assembly appears in the list. But in Visual Studio when I try to add a reference to my assembly it does not appear in the Add Reference dialog box. I have tried both restarting Visual Studio and rebooting the machine to no avail. Sadly all the help I can find seems to assume that once your assembly is in the GAC it will appear in the Add Reference dialog automatically. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Administrator · Answer

Hi I found an article on the Microsoft site which told me what I need to know :) Basically I need to add a registry key for my assemblies folder under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NET Framework\AssemblyFolders . The Add Reference dialog will then list any assemblies I have in that folder without me having to browse.

Administrator · Answer

So even though it's in the GAC I still have to browse to its physical location? Other files in the GAC seem to appear in the Add Reference automatically without having to browse.

Administrator · Answer

Yes you cannot browse to Windows\assembly or WinNT\assembly in VS add reference dialog. What you could do is keep all your assemblies that go to the GAC somewhere in a designated place. Then you'll know where to browse when you need to refer to your assembly.