I have a wierd application download mechanism. I have an exex file with the extension, with all the other DLLs and the applications themselves inside it. These files (assemblies) are extracted from resources and loaded into emd, because I am joining the Assemblyresolve event of the current AppDomain.
[STAThread] static void Main() { // if the command line contains extract then extract the dlls, next run will resolve assemblies from disk bool saveDllsToDisk = new List<string>(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()).Contains("extract"); // if the command line contains bin then use the bin folder instead of temp to extract dlls bool useBinFolder = new List<string>(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()).Contains("bin"); if (!Directory.Exists(tempFolder)) { Directory.CreateDirectory(tempFolder); } // the assembly resolver will get here because it will not find the dlls in the bin folder // we load assemblies in our specific way: // - if exists in our temp/bin folder load from there // - else load from resources // - if specified extract DLLs to the temp/bin folder AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve += (sender, args2) => { string name = new AssemblyName(args2.Name).Name; Debug.WriteLine("START LOADING " + name); Assembly assembly = null; string folder = useBinFolder ? binFolder : Path.Combine(tempFolder, APP_NAME); string fileName = name.Replace(".","_").Replace("#EXE#", ""); // in resources we use _ instead of . string extension = name.Contains("#EXE#") ? "exe" : "dll"; // hack for our embedded exe files name = name.Replace("#EXE#", ""); // hack for our embedded exe files if (File.Exists(Path.Combine(folder,String.Format("{0}.{1}", name, extension)))) { // load from file in app temp folder assembly = Assembly.LoadFile(Path.Combine(folder, String.Format("{0}.{1}", name, extension))); } else { // extract assembly from resources byte[] assemblyBytes = (byte[])resMan.GetObject(fileName, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); assembly = Assembly.Load(assemblyBytes); // if selected save to file so the next run JIT will resolve from disk if (saveDllsToDisk) { string outDll = Path.Combine(folder, String.Format("{0}.{1}", name, extension)); using (var fs = File.Create(outDll)) { fs.Write(assemblyBytes, 0, assemblyBytes.Length); } } } Debug.WriteLine("LOADED " + name); return assembly; }; splashScreen = new frmSplash(); // as soon as splashscreen starts animating assembly preloading will be launched on this eventhandler splashScreen.Started += new EventHandler(splash_Started); // splashscreen has finished fadein we must now wait for all libraries to be preloaded and set CanContinue splashScreen.Finishing += new EventHandler(splash_Finishing); splashScreen.CanContinue = false; // run splashscreen while preloading of DLLs is going on Application.Run(splashScreen); }
This bootloader has only one link and refers to the main application, but does not refer to the main method in order to avoid an assembly search at startup. What I do is force build during splash screen animation:
ObjectHandle instance; string[,] assemblies = { {"WindowsBase, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35","dummy"}, // will go from GAC, not our resolver {"PresentationCore, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35","dummy"}, // will go from GAC, not our resolver {"PresentationFramework, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35","dummy"}, // will go from GAC, not our resolver {"WindowsFormsIntegration, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35","dummy"}, // will go from GAC, not our resolver {"PresentationFramework.Aero, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35","dummy"}, // will go from GAC, not our resolver {"System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089","dummy"}, // will go from GAC, not our resolver {"AvalonDock, Version=1.3.3585.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=85a1e0ada7ec13e4", "dummy"}, // out reference inside resources {"AvalonDock.Themes, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null", "dummy"}, // out reference inside resources {"ICSharpCode.AvalonEdit, Version=4.0.0.5950, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9cc39be672370310", "dummy"}, // out reference inside resources {"WPG, Version=2.0.4120.37542, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null","dummy"}, // out reference inside resources {"WPGBrushEditor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null","dummy"}, // out reference inside resources {"HLSLEditor, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null","dummy"} // preload even our main file that will launch after the splashscreen }; for (int i = 0; i <= assemblies.GetUpperBound(0); i++) { try { instance = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.CreateInstance(assemblies[i,0], assemblies[i,1]); } catch (Exception ex) { /* must not raise errors, it will fail because we are not actually asking for a * valid type and we only need this assembly loaded right now*/ } }
Now you see that in any folder there are no DLL files, but there are assemblies directly loaded from resources.
Now my problem is: how to register a COM object processed in one of my DLL files?
RegAsm uses file paths to register a COM object ... :(
Any help appreciated!