Friday 25 April 2008

Extracting a DLL from the Global Assembly Cache

Sometimes, you might need to access DLLs which for various reasons might exists only in the Windows\Assembly folder. This folder allows you to drop DLLs into it, but does not allow you to drag DLLs out.

The following workaround allows you to get access to the DLLs in the GAC.

Create a mapped drive to:

\\servername\C$\Windows\assembly

When you click on the mapped drive you will find a number of GAC folders. Browse around to find the DLL you require.

I'm not sure if this is something advisable to do, so please handle with care!