Virtualizing .NET Assemblies Registered in the GAC

Q:
A number of ManageFusion .07 attendees asked, "Is SVS able to virtualize .NET assemblies registered in the GAC?"

A:
An equivalent number of SVS engineers were polled to formulate this response, "Yes, .NET assemblies that are normally installed in the GAC can be virtualized in SVS.

"Applications, whether virtualized or not, can make calls to the assembly and the proper behavior will occur. For example, if an application in the base calls the virtualized GAC assembly, the results will not be virtualized. Likewise, if an application in a layer makes the same call, the results will be virtualized into the application's layer. Even better, if two applications, each in their own layers access a different version of the same shared assembly, the assembly can be virtualized into the respective application layer.

"The different assembly versions can now coexist, each application calling its associated version of the shared assembly. This is another example of how SVS helps fix DLL Hell.

"Of course, this scenario assumes .NET is installed into the base, which is a recommend practice."