Removing Strong named assembly from GAC

I have created a .NET helper to provide me access to the BRE. In Vista, I stumbled upon this weird error. Everything has been working fine for the past month or so, now I am trying to deploy a newer version of this .NET helper, and I found that I could not un-deploy this assembly from the GAC.

After closing all programs, I still see this reference:


Looking at the Process Explorer I find that there is an instance of the MMC running. BTW, if you use regular Task Manager, you wont even see this instance. This instance has this command:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\BTSmmc.msc" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\BTSmmc.msc" -32

Funny thing is that I can't kill this process in my explorer. When I try killing it from the Process Emplorer, it gives me this error:

Error opening process: The parameter is incorrect.

If I try to un-install it from the GAC directly (right-click on assembly), I get this error:

Assembly Cache Viewer = Uninstall failed

Access is denied: 'BRE.EDSHelper'

Running out of ideas, I decided to run the gacutil with elevated privileges in Vista.

Yeap, that did the trick... :D

gacutil /u BRE.EDSHelper

    1 C:\Windows\system32>gacutil /u bre.edshelper

    2 Microsoft (R) .NET Global Assembly Cache Utility.  Version 2.0.50727.42

    3 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

    4 

    5 

    6 Assembly: bre.edshelper, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=47ef5031caf5d372, processorArchitecture=MSIL

    7 Uninstalled: bre.edshelper, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=47ef5031caf5d372, processorArchitecture=MSIL

    8 Number of assemblies uninstalled = 1

    9 Number of failures = 0

Ahhh UAC is a beautiful and dangerous feature. And yet, I still keep it turn on (it rocks...;)