In this post we will discuss about what is GAC in .Net. Also you can check out my previous post on ExecuteNonQuery(), ExecuteReader() and ExecuteScalar() in Ado.Net, Anonymous Types in C#.Net and WCF interview questions and answers in C#.Net.
- GAC stands for Global Assembly Cache.
- GAC can be termed as registry of .Net framework for maintaining shared assemblies. This comes with .Net installation.
- Location of GAC is C:\Windows\assembly
- The GAC folder is accessible with security options-
1. The folder will only accept strong name assemblies.
2. The folder is accessible to the user with administrative previlages for placing assembly or removing assembly.
- You can place an assembly into GAC in two ways:
1. Drag and Drop: Through explorer view you can drag and drop the assembly to the GAC.
2. GACUtil.exe: You can put assembly to GAC using the command line utility GACUtil.exe
Gacutil -i "Path of the assembly"
It will put the dll into GAC.
- To remove an assembly from GAC you can use the same GACUtil utility like below:
Gacutil -u AssemblyName
The above command will remove the assembly from GAC.
- Windows registry will maintain location of COM components where as GAC will contain assembly.
- Windows registry can not contain multiple versions of COM component where as GAC can contain multiple versions of assembly.
- GAC stands for Global Assembly Cache.
- GAC can be termed as registry of .Net framework for maintaining shared assemblies. This comes with .Net installation.
- Location of GAC is C:\Windows\assembly
- The GAC folder is accessible with security options-
1. The folder will only accept strong name assemblies.
2. The folder is accessible to the user with administrative previlages for placing assembly or removing assembly.
- You can place an assembly into GAC in two ways:
1. Drag and Drop: Through explorer view you can drag and drop the assembly to the GAC.
2. GACUtil.exe: You can put assembly to GAC using the command line utility GACUtil.exe
Gacutil -i "Path of the assembly"
It will put the dll into GAC.
- To remove an assembly from GAC you can use the same GACUtil utility like below:
Gacutil -u AssemblyName
The above command will remove the assembly from GAC.
- Windows registry will maintain location of COM components where as GAC will contain assembly.
- Windows registry can not contain multiple versions of COM component where as GAC can contain multiple versions of assembly.