Junfeng Zhang's Windows Programming Notes

Brad thinks the API AppDomainSetup.ShadowCopyFiles is API design hall of shame. http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2005/11/17/494282.aspx I don't think Brad is fair here. At best, it is just a not-so-well-designed API. An API to be hall of shame...

Assembly loading (Assembly.Load) is the process of loading an assembly reference. It starts with an assembly reference, and ends with a System.Reflection.Assembly instance that can be JITted and executed. Disclaimer: The following content...

The SDK version and the released version don’t need to have the same assembly version number....

Host and plugins --- how the plugins locate the shared assemblies....

We have got many questions on GAC assemblies on install and uninstall. This article attempts to discuss how GAC assemblies install and uninstall are implemented, and the common mistakes/errors people seen in those area. (Disclaimer: Information...

In the previous post I showed an example on how to use fusion APIs to get the full display name of a given assembly. This time I am going to show a similar example. Instead of showing the full display name, we will show the display name broken up into...

Given a path to an assembly manifest file, how do we get its full display name, including ProcessorArchitecture? From my previous discussion , we know there is no managed way to achieve this. We have to use an unmanaged solution. From the discussion...

Thomas Quinn quietly started his blog on Addins. http://blogs.msdn.com/tq/default.aspx Thomas works as an Architect in VSTO (Visual Studio Tools For Office). He worked on the Addin model for Office for long. Now he is also looking to solve the managed...

If you haven’t noticed, assemblies in .Net framework 2.0 have a new name attribute ProcessorArchitecture . The attribute is exposed in AssemblyName class as a property ProcessorArchitecture . If you pay a little more attention, you will notice...

In my previous blog Assembly Display Name , I talked about some change we made in .Net framework 2.0 around assembly name paring and display name. All the changes are for goodness. But it turns out many applications have unintentionally depended on...

We all know there are three types of binding policies: App config, publisher policy, and admin config. I’ll ignore admin config for this discussion. App config affects one application on multiple assemblies. Publisher policy affects one assembly for...

The following is a sample from the developer who owns mscoree.dll. The sample prints out all the CLR versions installed in the machine. The code will be shipped in .Net framework SDK as a sample. // This is the function pointer definition for the...

How do I know if console handle is redirected?...

Domain Neutral Assemblies and AssemblyResolveEvent handler...

Assembly.Load() takes an assembly display name as input, while Assembly.LoadFrom() takes a file path as input. Typically the application will only call one of them, but not one after the other. I have seen a few cases where people want to...

Figure out the bitness of a process and the ProcessorArchicture of the system...

AssemblyName.ReferenceMatchesDefinition...

The Future of Assembly Versioning...

If you want to know how to customize every bit of CLR, you should read Steven Pratschner's book Customizing the Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735619883/qid%3D1119055133/sr%3D11-1...

To reuse the same NGEN image of an assembly for every domain in a multi-domain environment, the assembly has to be loaded as domain neutral. To enable domain neutral assemblies, the host must enable domain sharing when it starts CLR. This is all...

Saurabh from ClickOnce test team quietly started his blogging today. http://blogs.msdn.com/saurabh/default.aspx Saurabh has been in the ClickOnce team since its incarnation. He and his buddies in ClickOnce test team have been answering questions...

In Windows, you use SetConsoleCtrlHandler to trap Ctrl+C.

friend assemblies change...

MSI Install On Demand...

Assemblies in LoadFrom context can’t be domain neutral. Also they can’t use NGEN. What is so special about assemblies in LoadFrom context that they can’t be the same as assemblies in the default load context? For one thing, assemblies in LoadFrom...