The Media Center Sandbox

 I have added a COM reference to my MCML project.  This creates a Interop.MediaPlayer.DLL along with my application DLL when I build my project.

Where should I install this Interop DLL?   Do I add it to the GAC like I do my app DLL?  If not, is there a default folder that it should be put in that the MCML app will find it?

Thanks.

Jeff

 

I answered this on your other thread, but this is probably more appropriate here.

If you leave Interop.MediaPlayer.dll on it's own you'll need to strong name sign it and install it in the GAC for it to be found by the addin.

Alternatively you can download a program called ILMerge 2.0 from MSDN and use that to merge the interop assembly into the primary assembly leaving you with only one DLL (your addin).  You develop in the same way with the interop assembly, but as part of your final build process you merge addin.dll and Interop.MediaPlayer.dll into a replacement addin.dll file.  This file contains the namespaces from both original assemblies, just in one DLL rather than separate ones.

Cheers,
Andrew

After using ILMerge 2.0 does anything need to change in my App.XML?  Can I just rename the new DLL to the same name as my addin.dll and register it in the GAC the same way so nothing in my install changes?

Jeff

 

 

 

I wouldn't imagine anything would change...but the easiest way to test the theory is to just try it and see if it works.

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Nope - you will need to re-sign it after merging, using the same key as you use in the property page, but other than that it works fine.

Cheers,
Andrew

I messed around with this for quite some time but just couldn't come up with a easy way to integrate this into my build process. 

Calling the ILMerge utility with the proper paremeters, renaming the assembly so it had the same name as my app did, signing the new assembly was just not something that was easy to do.  I am using Visual Basic 2005 Express. 

Turns out it was MUCH easier to just change my install to also add the Interop.MediaPlayer.dll to the GAC.   It is already strong name signed as part of the IDE build process. 

Thanks for the help though.

Jeff

 

If you're going to ship this as a commercial application, you'll need to do something differently.  At least recreate the interop with a different name/namespace so that you're not installing a generic interop DLL into the customer's GAC.

Cheers,
Andrew

How do I do that?  I add the reference as COM using wmp.dll.  It creates the reference name and it is greyed out so I can't rename it?

 

 

You need to use the tool that creates the interop DLL from the .NET Framework SDK (installed as part of VS2005 I think) - I think the tool is called AxImp (or something like that) - not at my dev PC at the moment.  It can create a strong name signed DLL with whatever namespace you like.

I still think that the best approach is to use ILMerge though - saves all this faffing about.

Cheers,
Andrew