Updating Telerik® Data Access Assemblies

This article is relevant to entity models that utilize the deprecated Visual Studio integration of Telerik Data Access. The current documentation of the Data Access framework is available here.

If an upgraded version of Telerik Data Access becomes available, you can install the new version and have all applications use the updated assembly. Please consider that the new version might introduce compatibility problems for certain applications when installing in the global assembly cache.

Updating Private Assemblies (Using XCopy)

If Telerik Data Access assemblies are being deployed as private assemblies, you can deploy the upgrade by just replacing the earlier version of the DLL in the application folder hierarchy with the new one. If the upgrade is done in this way, the application needs to be instructed to load the new version of Telerik.OpenAccess.dll, Telerik.OpenAccess.Runtime.dll and Telerik.OpenAccess.35.Extensions.dll. To do so, include the content of Telerik.OpenAccess_PublisherPolicy.cfg, Telerik.OpenAccess.Runtime_PublisherPolicy.cfg and Telerik.OpenAccess.35.Extensions_PublisherPolicy.cfg in the application configuration file. This redirects the assembly resolution to the current version of the respective assemblies. This has to be used if the application cannot or should not be recompiled.

Also you can recompile the application against the new Telerik Data Access version and redeploy the whole application including Telerik Data Access libraries as private assemblies.

Due to changes in the Telerik Data Access Enhancer, if you are upgrading your Telerik Data Access assembly references from Q2 2011 version or earlier to Q3 2011 version or later, you should Rebuild your application before deploying it.

You should keep a copy of the earlier version so that if you experience any compatibility issues with the new assembly, you can revert to the earlier version.

Updating Shared Assemblies (Using the Global Assembly Cache)

The easiest way to upgrade a Telerik Data Access assembly in a shared configuration is to install the updated DLL in the global assembly cache. By default, the common language runtime tries to load the assembly that has the latest build and revision numbers, but the same major and minor version numbers, as the assembly the application was built with. Therefore, if the major and minor version numbers have not changed, adding the later version to the global assembly cache automatically updates all applications that refer to the Telerik Data Access assemblies.

If you have installed Telerik Data Access in the GAC, you can also update the application configuration file or alternatively use the provided policy assemblies and install these into the GAC. Telerik Data Access comes pre-packed with publisher policy files to redirect assembly requests to the new version. You can find more details on using publisher policy files in MSDN.

Installing an Assembly in the Global Assembly Cache

You can use one of the following tools to install an assembly in the global assembly cache:

An installer program, such as the Microsoft Windows Installer version 2.0
The Global Assembly Cache tool command line utility (Gacutil.exe)
The .NET Framework Configuration tool (Mscorcfg.msc)

For more information about deploying .NET applications, see Deploying .NET Framework-based Applications on MSDN.

It is recommended that you include all of these assemblies—except for the policy assemblies—directly with your application and not use the global assembly cache (GAC).