faqs-05

.NET Deployment Questions and Answers

What do you know about .NET assemblies?
Assemblies are the smallest units of versioning and deployment in the .NET application. Assemblies are also the building blocks for programs such as Web services, Windows services, serviced components, and .NET remoting applications.

What’s the difference between private and shared assembly?
Private assembly is used inside an application only and does not have to be identified by a strong name. Shared assembly can be used by multiple applications and has to have a strong name.

What’s a strong name?
A strong name includes the name of the assembly, version number, culture identity, and a public key token.

How can you tell the application to look for assemblies at the locations other than its own install?
Use the
directive in the XML .config file for a given application.

should do the trick. Or you can add additional search paths in the Properties box of the deployed application.

How can you debug failed assembly binds?
Use the Assembly Binding Log Viewer (fuslogvw.exe) to find out the paths searched.

Where are shared assemblies stored?
Global assembly cache.

How can you create a strong name for a .NET assembly?
With the help of Strong Name tool (sn.exe).

Where’s global assembly cache located on the system?
Usually C:\winnt\assembly or C:\windows\assembly.

Can you have two files with the same file name in GAC?
Yes, remember that GAC is a very special folder, and while normally you would not be able to place two files with the same name into a Windows folder, GAC differentiates by version number as well, so it’s possible for MyApp.dll and MyApp.dll to co-exist in GAC if the first one is version 1.0.0.0 and the second one is 1.1.0.0.

So let’s say I have an application that uses MyApp.dll assembly, version 1.0.0.0. There is a security bug in that assembly, and I publish the patch, issuing it under name MyApp.dll 1.1.0.0. How do I tell the client applications that are already installed to start using this new MyApp.dll?

Use publisher policy. To configure a publisher policy, use the publisher policy configuration file, which uses a format similar app .config file. But unlike the app .config file, a publisher policy file needs to be compiled into an assembly and placed in the GAC.

What is delay signing?
Delay signing allows you to place a shared assembly in the GAC by signing the assembly with just the public key. This allows the assembly to be signed with the private key at a later stage, when the development process is complete and the component or assembly is ready to be deployed. This process enables developers to work with shared assemblies as if they were strongly named, and it secures the private key of the signature from being accessed at different stages of development.
.NET and COM Inteview Questions and Answers

Describe the advantages of writing a managed code application instead of unmanaged one. What’s involved in certain piece of code being managed?
The advantages include automatic garbage collection, memory management, support for versioning and security. These advantages are provided through .NET FCL and CLR, while with the unmanaged code similar capabilities had to be implemented through third-party libraries or as a part of the application itself.

Are COM objects managed or unmanaged?
Since COM objects were written before .NET, apparently they are unmanaged.
Any code not written in the Microsoft .NET framework environment is UNMANAGED. So naturally COM+ is unmanaged because it is written in Visual Basic 6.

So can a COM object talk to a .NET object?
Yes, through Runtime Callable Wrapper (RCW) or PInvoke.

How do you generate an RCW from a COM object?
Use the Type Library Import utility shipped with SDK. tlbimp COMobject.dll /out:.NETobject.dll or reference the COM library from Visual Studio in your project.

I can’t import the COM object that I have on my machine. Did you write that object?
You can only import your own objects. If you need to use a COM component from another developer, you should obtain a Primary Interop Assembly (PIA) from whoever authored the original object.

How do you call unmanaged methods from your .NET code through PInvoke?
Supply a DllImport attribute. Declare the methods in your .NET code as static extern. Do not implement the methods as they are implemented in your unmanaged code, you’re just providing declarations for method signatures.

Can you retrieve complex data types like structs from the PInvoke calls?
Yes, just make sure you re-declare that struct, so that managed code knows what to do with it.

I want to expose my .NET objects to COM objects. Is that possible?
Yes, but few things should be considered first. Classes should implement interfaces explicitly. Managed types must be public. Methods, properties, fields, and events that are exposed to COM must be public. Types must have a public default constructor with no arguments to be activated from COM. Types cannot be abstract.

Can you inherit a COM class in a .NET application?
The .NET Framework extends the COM model for reusability by adding implementation inheritance. Managed types can derive directly or indirectly from a COM coclass; more specifically, they can derive from the runtime callable wrapper generated by the runtime. The derived type can expose all the method and properties of the COM object as well as methods and properties implemented in managed code. The resulting object is partly implemented in managed code and partly implemented in unmanaged code.

Suppose I call a COM object from a .NET applicaiton, but COM object throws an error. What happens on the .NET end?
COM methods report errors by returning HRESULTs; .NET methods report them by throwing exceptions. The runtime handles the transition between the two. Each exception class in the .NET Framework maps to an HRESULT.