>Hey everyone!
>
>I am a little confused on the issue of deploying developer components. I have a dll that would be useful for me and my fellow coworkers to use. What is the best way to deploy/distribute a developer component? Do they just put it on their local machine and go from there? Should I make a MSM installer file for it and if so how would they reference my component in their program? What concerns are there if I start updating it and to update the old versions of the component? Most of the material I've been looking though just deals with deploying executables, but nothing really on the best way to deploy developer components.
>
>TIA!!

You could define a directory structure for your .Net apps with a common folder. This common folder could contain assemblies that are shared amoung various aps in your organization.

When you build your ap's assemblies you will reference your shared components. Then, you will specify in your aps config files a privatePath of ..\common to find components. You could have a dir structure like:

COMPNAME
   COMMON
   APP1
   APP2

The parent of COMPNAME would be the specified install directory, perhaps Program Files. As long as they intall all aps to that directory then common would be in the same place. If they installed it somewhere else then your install would create the common at the new folder.

The other option is to use the GAC. Your install script could ensure that the user has the common component in his GAC, if not, it would install it there. If course, you have to provide a strong name to put the component in the GAC, but that isn't very hard.

BOb