We have a large, deployed, 3-tier .NET application which for good business reasons can't be upgraded at present. The client makes use of a number of classic c++ ActiveX controls through the usual interop mechanism.
We have fixed some critical bugs in one of the ActiveX controls and need to deploy the fixes to a number of customers without reinstalling the client. Patches are allowed, including upgrading dlls. Is there a way to install a bug-fixed ActiveX dll without requiring a new client? The interface, filename, GUIDs, etc., are all unchanged.
I've tried just replacing the dll without success -- got a variety of somewhat strange errors, but it's possible that the ActiveX dll (which is still in development) is defective -- that's being followed up in parallel.
Should simply substituting the dlls work? If not, can you suggest another approach short of rebuilding then reinstalling the client which ought to work?