Assemblies

An assembly is a collection of types and resources that are built to work together and form a logical unit of functionality, such as a Dynamic Link Library (DLL). Assemblies are designed to simplify application deployment and to solve versioning problems that can occur with component-based applications.

You can create single file or multiple file assemblies by using Visual Studio 2005. Files that are contained in a multiple file assembly are linked through the assembly manifest (a structure containing the metadata for the assembly), so that the common language runtime manages them as a unit.

Assemblies are self-describing components that have no dependencies on registry entries and, as such, allow zero-impact installation of an application. They also simplify uninstalling and replicating applications.