Third party DLL does not have 'strong name'?

c# .net vb.net visual-studio-2010 assembly-signing
CJ7 picture CJ7 · Mar 17, 2013 · Viewed 11.4k times · Source

My Visual Studio 2010 solution references a third party proprietary DLL.

When I try to compile the solution the error message reads:

Unable to emit assembly: Referenced assembly 'NameOfAssembly.DLL' does not have a strong name

Is the only solution to this issue to sign the third party DLL with my own key?

Answer

Hans Passant picture Hans Passant · Mar 17, 2013

That's criminal negligence by anybody that creates assemblies used by others, given how trivial it is to give an assembly a strong name while building it. Doing it afterwards is quite painful, you have to decompile the assembly with ildasm.exe and put it back together with ilasm.exe, now using the /key option.

If you have a working relationship with the owner then send them a nastygram. If you don't then you probably should question the quality of the assembly, this is a major oversight and shows evidence that few people actually use the assembly.

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