How do I reference an unsigned assembly from a VSTO Word Doc project?

Question

I created a new project in VS2008. Project type

Visual C# > Office > 2007 > Word 2007 Document

Added some code.. got Word to do a few jumps through some custom hoops.. all fine. Now I need to reference another assembly (CopyLocal as false) which is not signed. So I add the project reference. Now the project will not build complaining

error MSB3188: Assembly 'X.dll' must be strong signed in order to be marked as a prerequisite.

The error code page is concise (now accustomed to this) Been googling and reading posts ever since.. No Luck.

How do I get around this ? Or is the hidden commandment that all references (for VSTO?) must be strong named / signed.
I cannot sign 'X.dll' and be done with it because it is a binary that I don't control also it depends on another bunch of unsigned dlls.. can't set off a chain sign reaction.

Update: Solved the build issue by turning CopyLocal=True. But this meant dumping the referenced X.DLL and all its dependencies into the bin\debug folder... Ughh! Tried creating a subfolder called bin\debug\refExecs and referencing X.dll CopyLocal=false from there. The error message was back.

Answer 1

Another way to get around this should be to load the assembly dynamically during runtime.

Googling for a solution brought up the following posting, maybe this is of any help?