CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vb.netdlldeployment
Criel
Criel

Reputation: 815

Deploying an application on a non-dev machine, having issue with a dll

I'm not very experienced with deploying applications and i'm having an issue with my very small screen scrape application.

I use a project that handles all screen scrapes and i just call the functions from the dll(on dev machines at least). When i reference that dll from the directory, it works fine on my machine but installing and launching on another machine without the project crashes it immediately when it tries to access the class to instantiate the screen scrape object.

Perhaps my assumption of dll is incorrect but doesn't having the dll mean it incapsulates all the classes/references/etc in that project so it can be used elswhere without having to lug the whole project with it?

What could be going on with this dll?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 66

Answers (1)

Mark Bailey
Mark Bailey

Reputation: 1131

The dll assembly encapsulates the project, but not its references. Anything that the project needs to reference must be available in the new environment as well, whether in the GAC (global assembly cache), the local directory, in a reference path, or wherever.

If you are using Visual Studio 2010 or earlier, you can use Setup Projects to nicely gather all necessary references and package them into an install package for you. There may still be complications that you will need to troubleshoot sometimes, but it simplifies your deployment effort. In Visual Studio 2012 and later, Setup Projects were dropped, but there are other options, like WIX and Install Shield. And that is a whole other topic with plenty of Q&A on this site.

Upvotes: 1

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