Is it possible to apply a publisher policy to a strongly named, privately published assembly?

Question

I have created a common library at work, but unlike in this question, it is not published to the GAC. Instead, it is privately published to a company-specific installation folder. EDIT: all the internal apps go into this same folder.

Is it still possible to apply a publisher policy, allowing older applications to use newer versions of the DLL? This article makes it sound like I can, but it's not totally clear to me.

If so, what should I distribute into my company-specific installation folder?

1. A config file for the common library? (policy.1.0.MyLibrary.config) (This would be easiest.)
2. A policy DLL for the common library? (policy.1.0.MyLibrary.dll -- the complied version of #1.)
3. Or a set of config files for every application that uses the common library? (MyApp1.exe.config, MyApp2.exe.config, etc.) (YUCK!)

Answer 1

1. would be all you need IMO. Or to be exact in your app.config setup bindingRedirect element and you are done.

Ups sorry. bindingRedirect demands that the folder is under your application folder.

What is the benefit of "company-specific installation folder" that is not under app folder in regard to GAC ? IMO the GAC is better if they want assemblies to be shared.

If they insist you could "manually" load the assemblies. Look at AppDomain.AssemblyResolve event.