What's the role of AssemblyFileVersionAttribute?

Question

Hello,

I don't know what is the concrete purpose of the AssemblyFileVersion attribute. I know that AssemblyVersion is part of the strong name, which is the 4-pla (assembly name, assembly version, culture, public key token), but I have no idea on how correctly use the Assembly*File*Version.

I currently use the BuildVersionIncrement plugin in visual studio to increment the AssemblyVersion's revision number at each compilation and I'm currently at 2.2.0.0 version (I reset the revision when upgrading minor revision), but I currently align AssemblyFileVersion with major and minor revision, so that's now 2.2

My question is

What's the best practice of AssemblyFileVersion's value? What does that attribute affect in versioning? What if I won't change the value any more while I release newer versions of my assembly with up-to-date AssemblyVersion?

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Assembly File Version : This is the version number given to file as in file system. It is displayed by Windows Explorer. Its never used by .NET framework or runtime for referencing.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/556041