
Chapter 2. .NET introduction 75
version of an assembly and does not work with follow-on versions of that
assembly. This also virtually eliminates the possibility of back-leveling an
assembly, a common problem with traditional Windows applications.
Figure 2-12 Object versioning within the .NET Global Assembly Cache
Assembly versioning is most transparent and effective when an assembly is
strong named and installed into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). The .NET
Global Assembly Cache is a repository for commonly used assemblies. Unless
specified by configuration and policy files, the .NET assembly loader loads
generically specified assemblies from ...