Does anyone have a program to remove a DLL from memory?<br><br>I am writing a DLL in VB and referencing it in another project. Whenever I recompile the DLL, I have to reboot before the new copy takes effect in my other project. I'd like to be able to just remove the DLL from memory so it would reload again when my project referenced it. Does anyone have such a program?<br><br>Thanks.
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Does anyone have a program to remove a DLL from memory?
- Thread starter steveblum
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I am working on a program to do just that. <br>I think that your problem could be solved if you set the properties of your dll to Binary compatability. If before you re-compile your dll you remove the reference to it. when you have compiled you should be able to select the new dll. <br><br>If this doesn't work then give me some more information o the Dll and the referencing project and I'll see what I can do.<br><br>Hope this helps <br><br>
Goto <A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> find a program called PsKill, as well as a bunch of other free useful system utilites (source included).<br> <p>nick bulka<br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>
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Guys,<br><br>Thanks for the help. Nick, I went to that site and downloaded PsKill and a couple others, but PsKill will only kill a process (mostly EXEs), not a DLL. I found HandleEx, which will show me loaded DLLs, and where they were loaded from, but it is read-only information.<br><br>Vince,<br>As far as what I am doing exactly, I am writing a DLL in VB that is loaded into MTS on a server. I've exported the package and installed it back on my computer. That puts a copy of the DLL and a reference in the registry to the version running on the Server. In another VB project, I reference that DLL so I get some enums and early binding. Therefore, VB runs the copy of the DLL on my client whenever I open that project.<br><br>To make changes to the DLL I do this:<br>Open the project in VB<br>Make the changes and Save<br>Compile a new copy of the DLL to my computer<br>Copy the DLL to the server<br>Remove and reinstall the DLL in MTS on the server<br>In MTS, Export that package (creates an EXE that can be run on a client computer to allow remote calls to that package)<br>On the client computer, run the export EXE to install an updated copy of the DLL and update the registry<br><br>At this point if I try to run my client app, any reference to the DLL will fail if I've made any changes to the interface of the DLL. Dropping the reference, closing VB, etc. don't help because the DLL is still in memory and doesn't get reloaded when I reopen the project and readd the reference.<br><br>To get around this, I reboot, and I'm back in business. I'm just wanting a utility to let me kill the DLL from memory, so I can close and reopen VB, and it will load the new copy of the DLL, without having to reboot.<br><br>That's the whole enchilada. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.<br><br>Thanks.<br>
Steve, The reason that your server side application doesn't recognize the DLL is most likely due to the project not having Binary Compatability set on the DLL. When a DLL get's compiled, it gets a set of GUID's assigned to it that uniquely identify it. Check the following sites for more information.<br><br><A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> article that I highly recomend is by Francesco Balena. This guy really nails it down in the following article. It gets pretty deep, but I found it to be EXCELLENT!<br><br><A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> find that if you understand how it works under the hood, it makes for great defensive programming. <p>Steve<br><a href=mailto:tribesaddict@swbell.net>tribesaddict@swbell.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>
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