Configuration and Deployment

No software project is complete until it is properly configured and deployed on the end user's machine. Deploying and configuring Windows applications has, historically, been very difficult. One of .NET's great strengths is its easy configuration and deployment.

Configuration of .NET applications involves XML configuration files that provide a flexible and hierarchical configuration scheme. Configuration settings can apply to every application on the machine or to specific applications.

.NET's deployment is perhaps its greatest improvement over previous generations of development environments:

• DLL's only need be located in a specific directory to be visible to an application (XCOPY installation).
• No registration of objects is required for an application to use the contents of a DLL, either in the Registry or elsewhere. Installation does not require the registration of components with regsvr32 or any other utility, though some globally available components may be placed in the Global Assembly Cache.
• There are no versioning issues with conflicting DLLs.

All these improvements are discussed in this chapter. In the meantime, shout it from the rooftops: "No more DLL Hell!"