How to extract an assembly from the GAC?

Question

There is a package I have to deal with which installs assemblies straight into the GAC (e.g. somewhere deep in %windows%/assembly).

How do I exorcise the actual as

Answer 1

Open the Command Prompt and Type :

cd  c:\windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL 

xcopy . C:\GacDump /s /y

This should give the dump of the entire GAC

Enjoy!

Answer 2

Yes.

Add DisableCacheViewer Registry Key

Create a new dword key under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion\ with the name DisableCacheViewer and set it’s [DWORD] value to 1.

Go back to Windows Explorer to the assembly folder and it will be the normal file system view.

Answer 3

I think the easiest way is to do it through the command line like David mentions. The only trick is that the .dll isn't simply located at C:\Windows\Assembly. You have to navigate to C:\Windows\Assembly\GAC\[ASSEMBLY_NAME]\[VERSION_NUMBER]_[PUBLIC KEY]. You can then do a copy using:

copy [ASSEMBLY_NAME].dll c:\ (or whatever location you want)

Hope that helps.