Richard Willis – SharePoint Learning Kit Coordinator, SalamanderSoft Owner

I’ve blogged before on how to Easily add a dll to the GAC, but that involves two instances of Windows Explorer and the mouse.

It would be quicker and easier to use the command line to update a dll in the GAC. You can do this with the Global Assembly Cache Tool gacutil, but this is only present if you have the .net SDK or Windows SDK installed. This is going to be the case with your development machine, but you don’t really want to be installing it on all your test servers.

To get round this I knocked up a quick utility which will remove an existing version of a dll from the GAC and then install the latest version. The code is:

using System;using System.Globalization;using System.EnterpriseServices.Internal;

namespace Test{    public class GacInstall    {        public static void Main(string[] arguments)        {            try            {                string assemblyPath = arguments[0];                Publish publish = new Publish();                publish.GacRemove(assemblyPath);                publish.GacInstall(assemblyPath);            }            catch (Exception e)            {                Console.WriteLine(e);            }        }    }}

You can then use it by passing it the dll you want as a command line parameter e.g.

GacInstall MyUpdatedCode.dll

Assuming that MyUpdatedCode.dll is in the same directory.

Combined with my last tip Recycle An Individual Application Pool From The Command Line you can now write a bat or cmd file to replace the dll in the GAC and recycle the application pool with 2 key presses: The up arrow key and then return.

When developing SharePoint artifacts which live in the GAC you have the following options to get your new release in as part of the development process:

1. Build your installation package and upgrade it
2. Put the new dll in the GAC and run iisreset
3. Put the new dll in the GAC and recycle the SharePoint application pool

This is because SharePoint will only pick up updated dlls in the GAC after a recycle.

As it is an iterative process when you are developing this happens a lot, so ideally you need a process which is as quick as possible. 1 & 2 take the longest time so you should aim to use 3.

Luckily there is a command line command which will recycle individual application pools, which will be quicker than using the IIS administration tool. The command is

C:\windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe recycle apppool "SharePoint – 80"

Where you replace "SharePoint – 80" with the name of your application pool.

Of course when releasing to a live server you should always go down the proper installation package upgrade, this tip is purely for development purposes on your development server.

There’s a lot more you can do with appcmd – it’s a utility for making configuration changes to IIS so pretty much anything you can do through the IIS MMC snap in can be done via it. There are more details about appcmd on Technet or you can run

C:\windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe /?

to get help details.

Note: appcmd is for IIS7 not IIS6.

If you are in education and using SharePoint then the Learning Gateway Conference is the must attend event of the year. Run by Alex Pearce (MVP) and myself it follows on from the highly successful first Learning Gateway Conference last year. This year will be even bigger and better! We have added a whole new track which is dedicated to leading SharePoint schools telling us their stories of how they have implemented their Learning Gateways, what has worked for them and what pitfalls to avoid.

With the recent release of SharePoint 2010, it is an exciting time in the SharePoint world and the educational pricing makes it a great product for use in schools, colleges and local authorities. However, in addition to covering some of the fantastic new features in SharePoint 2010, we will still have lots of content for SharePoint 2007. So whether you have already moved to SharePoint 2010, are planning to upgrade over the summer or don’t currently have any plans to change, there will be lots of great information you can take away and use in your Gateway.

With both technical and user oriented sessions there is something for everybody – network managers, technicians, users, Learning Gateway managers or members of senior leadership teams. In addition the conference will be relevant and useful whether you are an experienced SharePoint user, just starting out or just considering SharePoint. With 3 concurrent tracks running throughout the day it would be worth considering having more than one attendee!

In addition to the content it will of course be a great networking event with the opportunity to meet others in the same situation as you and discuss what you are doing. At only £150 for the day it’s an unrivalled professional development opportunity providing information you will be able to put in practice straight away.

The venue is Church House, Westminster in Central London so is easy to get to from almost anywhere.

For more information visit the conference web site and register today. To whet your appetite here is a list of the sessions:

We hope to see you there on the 14th!