Assembly Deployment Tool (Maintenance Mode)
- 4 minutes to read
The DevExpress Assembly Deployment Tool for Visual Studio collects all redistributable assemblies required to deploy your application (including DevExpress assemblies).
Important
The DevExpress Assembly Deployment tool is in maintenance mode. It does not support .NET applications and we no longer recommend that you use it for .NET Framework applications.
Modern IDEs and build systems can resolve project dependencies and include required assemblies into build/publish output. We recommend that you use standard Visual Studio build and deployment features. For additional information, see the following Microsoft help topic: Deploy .NET Framework and applications.
If required, you can still download the tool. If you experience any issues with the output, try Visual Studio build and deployment features instead.
Open the downloaded VSIX file with the Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector:
Select IDE versions where to install the tool:
Restart Visual Studio. You can now use the tool:
Use the Assembly Deployment Tool
The Assembly Deployment Tool is accessible through the main menu in the Visual Studio IDE (Tools > DevExpress Assembly Deployment Tool):
In the DevExpress Assembly Deployment Tool dialog, specify the path to the folder where you want to deploy the project(s), select the project(s), and click Analyze:
Once analysis is complete, you will see a list of DevExpress assemblies required for application distribution:
The assemblies list is organized as follows:
- Output files for the selected projects are at the top of the list: executable files (.exe) for WinForms and WPF projects or assembly files (.dll) for ASP.NET web applications.
- After output files, there is a list of DevExpress assemblies directly referenced by selected projects. These include additional required assemblies such as ASP.NET or WPF Themes, and/or the DevExpress Printing assembly that may not be directly referenced by selected projects. Note that design-time assemblies (*.Design.dll) are not included in the list even if they are directly referenced. This is because they are not required for distribution, and it is strictly prohibited to deploy such assemblies according to the DevExpress EULA.
At the bottom of the list, there are additional items used to customize the overall assembly list.
Add non-system referenced assemblies… This item adds non-system assemblies referenced by projects to the list. Note that this item is unavailable if there are no corresponding assemblies referenced by a project.
Add a custom assembly… This item allows you to add any custom assembly from the disk to the list for further distribution along with other DevExpress assemblies. Click it to be able to select a custom assembly. Note that you can add one assembly each time you click the “Add a custom assembly…” item.
If you add custom assemblies to the redistributable assembly list or exclude automatically detected DevExpress assemblies, your choice will be persistent for each solution as well as the specified destination deployment path. This eliminates the need to reconfigure the list of required redistributable assemblies when you collect them for deployment.
Note
The Assembly Deployment Tool does not collect Satellite Resource Assemblies used for localization. You should collect and deploy such libraries manually.
As an additional option, you can add or remove the redistributable assemblies from the list by choosing corresponding DevExpress products. The products are listed in the By Products tab for the specific DevExpress product version. A list of required assemblies will be added once you check a specific product. This feature is useful when your projects do not reference DevExpress assemblies explicitly. It may load them implicitly using Reflection, for example.
Once you have selected the required assemblies and specified the deployment folder, click the Deploy button.
The Tool will copy all selected assemblies into the specified destination folder. Note that if the destination folder does not exist, you will be prompted to create one. If the destination folder is not empty and contains any of the selected assemblies, you will be asked to rewrite the files in the destination folder.