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So I am trying to register and use a .NET library that I have created in C#.NET and up until now I have been getting Visual Studios to "Register COM" on build.

I am now trying to go through the process of a how I might deploy so I have the following which registers the DLL:

"%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\"regasm.exe "%~dp0myDLL.dll"

This is Windows XP and the folder with the batch script above and the myDLL.dll sits on the desktop.

which registers the DLL file, but when I come to add a reference to it in VBA I am getting the following:

Error in loading DLL

I can see the library in the References list and the location looks correct.

What am I doing wrong?

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2 Answers

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If you don't use Regasm's /codebase option (like the IDE does) then you will also need to register the assembly in the GAC with gacutil.exe. Which also requires giving the DLL a strong name. Note that gacutil.exe is not available on a machine that doesn't have the Windows SDK installed.

The desktop is certainly a bad place to put COM servers, way too easy for them to disappear and produce a hard to diagnose error message. Like this one. Realistically, COM servers require an installer.

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Will give it a go. The only reason I put it on the desktop was to ensure it wasn't a strange permissions issue. – Ben 18 hours ago
I got the same error. – Ben 18 hours ago
Use SysInternals' ProcMon utility, it shows you exactly what registry keys are being used and what files are getting loaded. If you've got a file in a wrong directory then it will show you that in the trace, searching for the file in the wrong place and not finding it. – Hans Passant 18 hours ago
Will give it a go. I've noticed that when I unregister the DLL. It is still visible in the references list – Ben 18 hours ago
Sure, your VBA project doesn't know that the DLL disappeared. It also doesn't know that you changed it, refreshing the reference after making changes is a hard requirement. Also a reason for this error message. – Hans Passant 18 hours ago
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The answer can be found here: "Register for COM Interop" vs "Make assembly COM visible"

I needed: regasm.exe /codebase /tlb path-to-dll.dll

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