Loading of Assemblies

[Jordan S.]

When an ASP.NET Application first starts, an application pool is created and
assemblies loaded into it.

How does ASP.NET "know" which assemblies to load - initially - into that
application pool? What controls which assemblies are initially loaded? Is it
Machine.config + App.config? Is there some other way that ASP.NET knows
which assemblies to load... any "hard-coded" that always load no matter
what?

When does ASP.NET load 3rd party assemblies into the default application
pool. For example, say that I have a 3rd party component (some UI widget) on
a page. When is that 3rd party component's containing assembly loaded?


Thanks.

 

[Cowboy \(Gregory A. Beamer\)]

There are certain items that are intially loaded from config files. I
believe there are also some 'hard coded' references that are loaded. The
rest of the assemblies are loaded when the first page using them is hit.
This is the case with third party controls.

If you want to reduce first hit with these controls, you can use the
precompile.axd "virtual" page to precompile the web application. It
essentially walks all of the pages to compile them. This is a 2.0 or later
feature, so it is not available in 1.x.