Difference between file version and assembly versions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Laurence
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L

Laurence

In VS.2005 using VB.NET

There are two versions on every project, The Assembly Version
and the File Version.

Why are there two different versions?

As far as I can tell, there is not need for two versions.

The assembly is the file, isn't it?

Thanks in Advance,

Laurence
 
Laurence,

Can you explain this more, because I am as well using VBNet and I can me not
remember that I have ever heard or read about two differen versions as you
wrote the File Version and an Assembly Version.

There is an Assembly file (dll or exe) which contains as file File Info and
in it Assembly info.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...sticsfileversioninfoclassfileversiontopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...n-us/cpguide/html/cpconassemblyversioning.asp

Is this maybe what you mean,

Cor
 
If you right click on a project in the IDE,
select properties, click on the application tab,
and press the assembly information button,
you will see entries for the assembly version and the file version,
which can be set independently.

I wondered why are there two types of versions?
What is each one used for?

Thanks in Advance,

Laurence
 
Yes, I did, It seems that the file version is ignored,
while the assembly version is used by the .NET Framework.

But we are probably going to use Xcopy to deploy our applications
so we don't have version problems. Each app will have in it's own
folder the proper versions of all of the components it needs.

Since we are going to do our own deployment, write a program
to check the version numbers on the client machine, with the
version number on the current release, and then Xcopy the current version
down to the client machine.

I guess we could use the assembly version to check if the version has
changed, or just use the file version. Since I only know of a way
to get the file version of a file from another program, we will have to
use the file version.

I was just concerned that the assembly version was necessary for something else.

Laurence
 
Laurence said:
I was just concerned that the assembly version was necessary for something else.
Click to expand...

If the assembly is strongly named then the version becomes part of the
strong name. There's way too much to explain about this in one post
though. Just know that the assembly version is important, especially
when using strongly named assemblies. Some developers may choose to
version their software using both methods. For example, they may
increment the file version and leave the assembly version unchanged for
service packs.

Brian
 
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