GAC Browser and Remover

Features Requests

2011-05-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

Here are the features that I am considering to add in future version of GAC Browser.

1. Show dependent assemblies (from GAC folder) when you delete an assembly.

Pros: No accidental delete. Clearer view on what you are doing.
Cons: This process will be slow like hell. Will annoy users who know what they are doing it.

2. Soft Delete: Backup Assemblies that are deleted

Pros: This is better than first option as you can always undo your mistake (manually most probably).
Cons: Unwanted assemblies will still be there in computer. I don't see any other cons here.

3. Drag Drop Support for adding assembly in GAC.

Pros: Quick and dirty way to add assembly in GAC.
Cons: Cannot support more feature. Handling all error may not be feasible (why to write another gacutil?).

Gac Browser And Remover 1.0 Release

2011-01-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, long awaited support to search assemblies for CLR 4.0 is here. New gac browser crawls through your CLR 4.0 GAC now.

Other feature that you may be interested in are:

32bit/64bit Architecture mentioned in search result
Assemblies that are installed with CLR/VS2008 cannot be uninstalled. This is to save myself being cursed by you if you try to delete System.Data :) You cannot delete that anymore - I've restricted based on public key that Microsoft uses.

"Remove" feature may not work on Windows 7 and Vista as smooth as it works in XP as Windows 7 (and so Vista) don't grant you access by default to System folders. It is sad but work around is to change folder permission of assembly folders to suit your need.

Download GAC Browser And Remove 1.0

GAC Changes in CLR 4.0, Announcement of GACBrowser 4.0.0

2010-08-19T08:25:00.001-07:00

A new assembly directory will be added for each CLR version (see reference [1][2] for details). This is to save older application due to breaking changes in assemblies of newer CLR. So if you are running an application with CLR 2, it will look into GAC of CLR 2 and CLR 1.1 but it will not in assembly of CLR 4.0.
As current GACBrowser version (1.0 or lower) is older than CLR 4.0, it cannot display assemblies of CLR 4.0. But it will display assemblies for .NET version 2.0 and CLR 1.1.
Next version of GACBrowser (4.0.0 to align with CLR version 4.0) which will be release by mid of this September will have support for viewing and deleting assemblies of CLR version 4.0.
Reference:
1. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2660355/net-4-0-has-a-new-gac-why
2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd727509.aspx

UPDATE: THIS IS DONE: http://gacbrowser.blogspot.com/2011/01/gac-browser-and-remove-10-release.html

Native Image Compilation with Future Gac Browser

2008-12-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

I've got thumbs down for messing up with windows registry from my friends, saying mostly they replace an assembly and do not expect to remove registry information as next thing to removal of assembly is installation of latest one into GAC for them.

But nobody can stop me giving next version of GAC browser. I've got a 'good' idea about integrating Native Image Compilation through/with GAC Browser itself.

Presently there is no way you can see if you dearly assembly is Natively Compiled or not. I think it would be nice to represent that in GAC Browser search result :)

Happy GACing!

GAC with Mono

2008-10-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

I don't think many people uses Mono but I was eager to see how GACing works on linux, and came though this link: http://www.mono-project.com/Assemblies_and_the_GAC
It gives good overview on discovering and loading assembly.
Less number of developers have prevented me developing GACBrowser in Linux. Hopefully some hardcore Mono guy (sorry! gender no bar) will do when time is right.

My next venture is a small .NET software to mass compress of images with couple of guys. We are going to port that into Windows as well as Unix like systems. It will use MVP (Model View Presenter) pattern so that we can reuse most of my code. Target audience is bigger and so we can afford to do so.

You Say !!

2008-04-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Do you have any suggestion, comment or just want to share something? Leave a comment here with your mail Id or mail me at "yogendrasinh" [at means @] gmail.com

.NET Assembly uninstall problem

2008-03-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever encountered this error when you try to uninstall a .NET assembly?
Unable to uninstall: assembly is required by one or more applications Pending references:
Most probably yes!

Cause:
It is because that assembly is installed by an installer (anyone.. including standard .net MSI) . Installer specifies a traced reference count on the assembly being installed so when you try to delete assembly using GACUTIL, you get above error. I couldn’t uninstall some assembly while I was manually uninstalling a software.

Work Around:
Method 1:
Use GACBrowser software to remove such assembly (uses 3rd approach specified below). It’s Easy, search and select assembly to remove. And removed!!
Download from here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=214315
GAC Browser is powerful tool to search and remove assembly. It is must have tool for any developer dealing with assemblies. On an average, if you have visual studio 2005 installed on your PC, you may see more than 1000 assemblies on you PC. There is no good way of searching assembly in you GAC unless you have GAC Browser with you. Also visibility in GAC is increased with more info like when it was last GACed. Double click any assembly to de-assemble the assembly in ILDASM. All in one! That’s why I said it a “must have”!
Method 2:
Windows maintains trace reference count in registry at two places.
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Assemblies\Global]
[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Assemblies\Global]
So you may want to go to this registry and remove the entry of the assembly that you want to uninstall. Use GACUTIL to remove assembly from GAC.
Method 3:
Go to Assembly folder using command prompt.1. Open CMD2. Go to assembly directory (for most of us: C:\Windows\assembly), If you type ‘DIR’, you may find different folders (important are: GAC, GAC_MSIL, GAC_32)3. Search your assembly folder from this folder, go to appropriate version folder and remove the folder.

Conclusion:
You may want to have GAC Browser software as well has use method 2 for clean operation. GAC browser is soon coming up with in build method 2.

GAC Browser 0.9 (beta 02) released

2008-03-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

After era of Alpha and Beta 01, we have now beta 02 ready to be downloaded. You may still find registry entries unchanged for trace referenced assemblies. It’s not at all harmful but next tidy release may handle it.

What’s new with Beta 02? It is only one thing. No double click! Based on some feedback stating unintended double clicks showing pop-up to de-assemble it. You have right click and select ‘Open with ILDASM’ option. Also, this approach will help adding more option here in future.

Last but not least, you are advised to uninstall the older software first and then install this (other wise you will see two entries at ‘Add Remove Program’), again, no harm in that but tidiness is the issue. This is because I published the software under different key (I know I did a stupidity… forgive me)

GAC Browser – An Introduction

2008-03-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

Audience: Microsoft .NET Developer, Support people of huge .NET softwares

Problem: When you are dealing (installation, un-installation, development or support) with huge software with multiple assemblies installed in Global Assembly Cache (GAC), you will have a glance of “hell” while searching the assemblies through in-build assembly viewer on windows explorer. You will be introduced to full feature hell when you get into problem of uninstalling a traced referenced assembly which is not directly possible by popular ‘gacutil’ command. And, you will be deep into hell on occasion of accidental removal of an assembly without any backup. Surprisingly, Microsoft doesn’t seem to care about these features even when the world is in verge of hailing 3^rd major release of .NET

Scope of the software: I felt a need of software to ease/eliminate above problem. Objective and vision of the software is to deal with GACed assembly completely for GAC search, software un-installation, development and support purpose.

Features: GAC Browser is powerful tool to search and remove assembly. It is must have tool for anyone dealing with assemblies in GAC. On an average, if you have visual studio 2005 installed on your PC, you may see more than 1000 assemblies on you PC. There is no good way of searching assembly in you GAC unless you have GAC Browser with you. Also, visibility in GAC is increased with more info like when it was last GACed. Double click any assembly to de-assemble the assembly in ILDASM. All in one! That’s why I said it a “must have”!

At the time, when this is written, GAC Browser supports,

· View All Assemblies form GAC.
· Search assemblies based from part of assembly name or public key.
· Sort the searched list based on any assembly attribute.
· Select one or more assemblies and remove them. Application can remove assemblies which is installed by any installer.
· Refresh your search.
· Think about suffering that you may bear to open an assembly of GAC with ILDASM. It's all easy here! Right Click and select 'Open with ILDASM' to open the assembly in IL Disassembler (ildasm), an inbuilt tool that comes with .NET.

Se See picture given below to know where to clik..Note that you have to set proper $path environment variable so that "ildasm" can work.

How to get it? You can download and install MSI for x86 CPU architecture, which also runs on x64 or AMD64, from here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=214315