InstallShield LE (with Visual Studio 2012) completely fails to detect dependencies

Question

I\'m having a nightmare trying to get a simple installer working in InstallShield LE (the one shipped with VS 2012). There are all kinds of problems that I can work around (like

Answer 1

I have recently been experiencing the problem you describe: a console application builds correctly, with up to date versions of dependencies in the bin directory, but when packaged with InstallShield LE, uses old versions of the dependency DLLs.

As you say:

Doing a "Clean Solution" didn't even fix the problem with the DLLs that are in my solution. It was finding a random version somewhere on my machine (in some sort compiler temp directory), and insisting on including that.

In my case, the offending files were located in the ASP.NET dynamic compilation cache at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root and C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root

Clearing the contents of these directories resolved the problem.

As an aside, I thought about adding a build action to empty these directories automatically, but I couldn't do this automatically without falling fowl of ownership permissions.