where is gacutil.exe?

Question

I am using Windows 7 Enterprise 32 bit. I have used Windows command line, and also used VSTS 2008 command line, but when executing gacutil.exe, there is command not found error.

I am wondering whether I need to install gacutil.exe from somewhere or gacutil.exe is located in somewhere else in my computer (I searched my computer, but find several files called gacutil.exe, I do not know which one should be used)?

BTW: I am using .Net 3.5.

Answer 1

gacutil comes with Visual Studio, not with VSTS. It is part of Windows SDK and can be download separately at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F26B1AA4-741A-433A-9BE5-FA919850BDBF&displaylang=en . This installation will have gacutil.exe included. But first check it here

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin

you might have it installed.

As @devi mentioned

If you decide to grab gacutil files from existing installation, note that from .NET 4.0 is three files: gacutil.exe gacutil.exe.config and 1033/gacutlrc.dll

Answer 2

1. Open Developer Command prompt.
2. type

where gacutil

Answer 3

You can use the version in Windows SDK but sometimes it might not be the same version of the .NET Framework your using, getting you the following error:

Microsoft (R) .NET Global Assembly Cache Utility. Version 3.5.21022.8 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Failure adding assembly to the cache: This assembly is built by a runtime newer than the currently loaded runtime and cannot be loaded.

In .NET 4.0 you'll need to search inside Microsoft SDK v8.0A, e.g.: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools (in my case I only have the 32 bit version installed by Visual Studio 2012).

Answer 4

On Windows 2012 R2, you can't install Visual Studio or SDK. You can use powershell to register assemblies into GAC. It didn't need any special installation for me.

Set-location "C:\Temp" [System.Reflection.Assembly]::Load("System.EnterpriseServices, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a") $publish = New-Object System.EnterpriseServices.Internal.Publish $publish.GacInstall("C:\Temp\myGacLibrary.dll")