How can one get Visual Studio 2005/2008 to reference assemblies in the 64-bit GAC instead of the 32-bit GAC? We are settin the target platfom to x64 and the compiler is throwing the error of
Error 2 Warning as Error: Assembly generation — Referenced assembly 'System.Data.dll' targets a different processor Common
Error 3 Warning as Error: Assembly generation — Referenced assembly 'mscorlib.dll'
targets a different processor CommonError 4 Assembly signing failed; output may not be signed — The system cannot find the file specified. Common
Update 29 Dec 08
Been trying out Aaron Stebner's suggestions to place 64-bit assemblies onto an isolated location (e.g. C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\GAC_64) and creating additional entries in the registry like HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft.NETFramework\AssemblyFolders\GAC_64 or HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft.NETFramework\v2.0.50727\AssemblyFoldersEx\GAC_64 but Visual Studio 2005 is still not picking it up….
Best Answer
I'm not sure why you would need to do this. .NET code that isn't specifically compiled for 32 bit will run 64 bit if it can. This includes the base framework libraries. In short, there is no reason that I know of to compile your assemblies specifically for 64 bit (other than referencing unmanaged 64 bit dlls, but you're talking about the GAC).
Some more information might help here.