Hi Kevin,

how tightly couples is this control to the form project?

If the control is a generic one used in many other projects, the idea is usually to have a separate release for this control. That is, you have a solution with a project for the control, a project for the unit tests, maybe one project for quickly testing some stuff in the control and - if needed - another project for a setup. When you are done with the control, you create a release, store the PDB files and tag/label the source code with the release version in your source control.

Every project that uses the control use a copy of the DLL or references the one in the GAC. When a new release of the DLL becomes available, you manually add them to the project, as updating the DLL requires that you test the application again. Otherwise you wouldn't notice if the new version of the control breaks something.

If, however, you are developing both projects side by side, the control project needs to be part of the other solution. The drawback here is that building the solution by default compiles all projects. Depending on the size of the project this can take quite a while.