How-To Guides and Usage Notes

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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.