Does a (.net) COM+ assembly need to be installed in the GAC?

Question

I have a .net assembly that has a COM+ ServicedCopmonent in it and at the moment I install it into the GAC to get everything working. This means that I need to have every assembly that it references in the GAC as well.

During development it is quite painful to make changes to thes assemblies, re-install them to the GAC and then test.

Is it possible to maintain the COM+ component but not have everything in the GAC?

Answer 1

No, you don't have to install it in the GAC. You can use regsvcs (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/04za0hca.aspx) with /appdir parameter to specify explicitly where the app is located.

Answer 2

No, they need to be registered in the Registry using the regsvcs tool. It needs to be a strongly named assembly though.