Assembly: An Assembly is a logical unit of code. Assembly physically exists as DLLs or EXEs. One assembly can contain one or more files. When you compile your source code, by default the exe/dll generated is actually an assembly. Unless your code is bundled as assembly it cannot be used in any other application. Every assembly file contains information about itself. This information is called as Assembly Manifest. The assembly which is used only by a single application is called as private assembly. In order to run the application properly your DLL must reside in the same folder in which the client application is installed. Thus the assembly is private to your application. Suppose that you are creating a general purpose DLL which provides functionality which will be used by variety of applications. Now, instead of each client application having its own copy of DLL you can place the DLL in ‘global assembly cache’. Such assemblies are called as shared assemblies. If an a...
This blog describes some of the packaging standards. Also contains methods to silently install different applications or handling their configuration for mass deployements.