Hi,
Whats an assembly?

Thanks,
prasath.K

Assembly is a Unit of Deployment as dll. It Represents group of resources,Type definitions.It can consists references to other Assemblies too.

The Type definitions, References and their Implementation are described in a Block called Manifest.

It is the Manifest which is used by CLR(Common Language runtime)for type Checking and Security Implementation.

So Assemble Becomes self Describing with this Manifest which is added advantage when compared to COM where all the Details are Stoerd in the Resgistry.

Also Different versions can be Stored and Exceuted Simultaneously.

There are Two Types of assemblies.
Private - No Registration needed .Simply Copied Inside the Project Folder.
Shared - Assemblies that are accessed are stored in the GAC(Global Assembly Cache) globally accessible to all .Net applications on the Runtime.

--R.Gopi