How-To Guides
This section explains how to perform selected Manifest Maker and Windows tasks. The division between Manifest Maker and Windows tasks is quite flexible since most tasks here involve both Manifest Maker and Windows.
Using Managed (.Net) Objects
- Using COM and Native DLLs in .Net Applications
- How to access COM and Native DLLs in .Net (CLR Managed) Applications.
- Accessing .Net (CLR Managed) Classes in Win32 Applications
- How to access .Net (CLR managed) classes from Win32 applications.
- Accessing .Net (CLR Managed) Classes in IIS
- How to access .Net (CLR managed) classes from Win32 (ASP or ISAPI) web applications in Windows Server.
- Runtime Versions and Errors 0x80131700 and 0x8013101b
- Runtime version behavior explained.
- PowerBuilder Notes
- Notes for PowerBuilder developers using registration-free .Net objects.
Assembly search order
- Modifying .Net Assembly Search Order
- How to modify the assembly search order in standalone applications
- Windows Manifest Search Rules Note
- When searching for a win32 side-by-side manifest Windows chooses embedded manifest over any
external manifests (*.manifest files). This behaviour can be controlled by a registry setting.
To change manifest priority edit the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide, add a DWORD value PreferExternalManifest and set it to 1. See the next item for more information. - Assembly Search Sequence Changes in Windows 7
- Windows 7 changed the manifest search behaviour
- File paths in manifests
- Windows side-by-side defines a strict assembly (and DLL) search order. There is
no support for relative or arbitrary paths. While some versions of Windows
accept relative paths in the "name" attribute of the <file> element, this is
considered a bug in Windows and is not supported by Microsoft. Read more on
assembly search order:
Assembly Searching Sequence on MSDN
Private Assemblies on MSDN
Using Manifest Maker with Visual Studio
- Manifest Maker Visual Studio 2022 Integration
- How to use Manifest Maker with Visual Studio 2022.
- Manifest Maker Visual Studio 2019 Integration
- How to use Manifest Maker with Visual Studio 2019.
- Manifest Maker Visual Studio 2017 Integration
- How to use Manifest Maker with Visual Studio 2017.
- Command line Manifest Maker
- How to build manifests with command line Manifest maker.
Web Applications
- Isolating Web Applications in IIS
- How to isolate web applications using Windows Server and IIS
- Isolating ASP .Net Applications
- How to make ASP .Net web applications use non-registered COM components in Windows Server and IIS.
64-bit Windows
- The Basics of 64-bit Windows
- Introduction to 64-bit Windows.
- Making 64-bit Manifests
- How to build manifests for 64-bit Windows applications.
Using the Side-by-Side API
- Manifest Maker Examples
- Examples included with Manifest Maker.
- When to Use the Activation Context API
- A discussion of the available options.
- How to Use the Activation Context API
- The most commonly used side-by-side functions.
- Programming the Activation Context API
- Practical examples of the SxS API usage.
Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Note
Windows 2008 R2 Server and Windows 7 broke side-by-side in IIS by embedding a hard-coded manifest in w3wp.exe.
This is fixed in Service Pack 1, see article KB976932.
Manifest Maker Skills
- Choosing Your Certificate
- How to choose which certificate should be used to sigh a shared assembly.
- Private Assembly Library
- How to create a private assembly library.
- Managing Your Certificates
- How to manage your certificate using Windows Certificate Manager.