Load Log4net custom appender from a library outside the application folder

Question

I have a C# custom appender library which needs to be used by several applications in different solutions which run in the same server. I have an addon installer solution that creates all the folders and stuffs which includes the custom appender library, which the other projects needs to use. Instead of adding this library into all the application's directory, I just want to let the each application's App.Config to point to this single custom appender library.

I have built a custom appender call MyCustomAppender in a library call MyCustomLibrary.dll.

Here is the xml code of one of the App.Configs:

<appender name="MyCustomAppender" type="MyCustomerLibrary.MyCustomAppender, C:\Users\Admin\Libraries\MyCustomLibrary">

It is not possible for me to put the path of the library because Log4net doesn't work this way. Is there a walk around for each application to point to C:\Users\Admin\Libraries\MyCustomLibrary.dll? to use the MyCustomAppender? The other applications needs to have 0 code changes, only their App.Config can be modified due the the reason this process needs to have minimal changes.

Answer 1

You can add the dll to the GAC on the machine your application is runnen. This will allow all programs to find the dll. BTW, coping the dll into the bin directory of the application will not change the code of the application.