Where should I place unmanaged .dlls in a .NET project using VS2008?

Question

So far I've been placing the dll into the /bin folder because it seems to be the only place it will get loaded when a DllImport'd function is called, but it just doesn't feel right since it's the output folder and it'll probably be wiped after a 'project clean' or 'rebuild all' operation.

How should I do this? Thanks in advance.

Note: I cannot embed the .dll into the .exe because the author explicitly wants the dll to be visible from the outside.

Answer 1

Use VS to create a new folder in your project called Lib. Copy your DLLs there and reference them from there.

Answer 2

Try this:

• Create a folder into your project
• Place your unmanaged assemblies in there
• Change "Copy to Output Directory" to "Copy If Newer" at Properties tab.