How Are References Handled in a VS2008 Website?

Question

I'm creating a web service that uses multiple DLLs, some of which are projects that I have developed and others are external DLLs. Those that are external, I have simply copied into the Bin directory of my WebService. However, those that are from my own projects I have added as references by right clicking on the bin folder and selecting add reference. This adds both a dll and a pdb file to the bin folder. However, when I build the website, I am not sure where these two files are pulled from. I need to know because I am trying to encrypt these DLLs as a post build step on the web service and I need to know where I can find the DLL I should encrypt. Need any more information let me know.

Answer 1

If the files are part of another project in your solution, then open the project folder for those projects (right click on the project node in VS and choose "Open In Explorer..."). There is a bin directory in that folder that the assembly for that project is placed in after it is built. When the web site project is built, the assembly is copied from this bin folder into the bin folder for the web site.

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EDIT

As discovered (in the comments to this answer), VS actually copies assemblies from the obj directory rather than the bin directory.