OK, now it's my turn to ask questions! <g>

I hate to use the "General" category to ask this, but I don't know where else would be appropriate.

I'm using a third-party tool (DevExpress.XtraSideBar), for which I have the source code. The version I have is pretty old ... it's at least 1.1 (and may even be 1.0). We're in the process of getting our applications built to 3.5. We will be sure that any new customers install the 3.5 Framework (and that install only installs 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5), consequently I need to recompile my DevExpress SideBar under VS2005 or VS2008.

I've already done this in VS2005 and it's not a problem at all ... however, these DLLs use Strong Names (private/public keys) and after recompiling, the new DLL obviously has different a public key.

I'm trying to make as few changes as possible to existing .csproj files, which all have references to the original version with the original public key (and this key *does* get stored in the .csproj files) ... so it would be nice if our developers could continue using the DevExpress version that they already have installed (I'm trying to not disrupt these guys too much).

So, here's the question:

Is this reference to the DLL's public key only a concern during development? If we distribute the newly compiled DevExpress DLL (with the new public key), even though we compiled all the applications with the old DLL ... is that going to cause a problem with our customers? We don't do any GAC installations or anything like that, it's all contained in one directory.

IOW, do the EXEs and DLLs of our applications expect to be using the old DevExpress DLL with the old public key? I suspect that this is the case and that this is not going to work the way I want it to. I just need some confirmation on this.

Thanks,
~~Bonnie