VS2005 loading project references from GAC

Question

I'm using VS2005 (haven't moved to 2008 because I'm still using some legacy tools) and have a question about the way project references work.

If I make a project reference to a project that has been deployed to the GAC, VS will use the assembly in the GAC. This is annoying when I have older code in the GACed assembly and I am making code changes and doing quick tests against them - I have to either GAC the new code every time, or remove the assembly from the GAC so VS can't get it from there.

Is there a way to defeat this behavior?

Answer 1

Copy the reference locally.

Answer 2

Can't you just change the reference, pointing to the DLL directly? Better yet, if you changing your DLL, use the Project as reference instead of the GAC DLL?

Answer 3

The best way around this is a two step proces.

1.) In your GAC'ed DLL upgrade the minor version number. (1.0 to 1.1) 2.) Update the project reference to copy local, and use the new version number.

This "SHOULD" get it working, but with the GAC it isn't always 100%.

You could go the route of a policy file, to stop the GAC from loading....but that gets way more complex.