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Private assembly and Shared assembly

A private assembly is normally used by a single application, and is stored in the application's directory, or a sub-directory beneath.

A shared assembly is intended to be used by multiple applications, and is normally stored in the global assembly cache (GAC), which is a central repository for assemblies.

A Shared assembly can also be stored outside the GAC, in which case each application must be pointed to its location via a codebase entry in the application's configuration file. The main advantage of deploying assemblies to the GAC is that the GAC can support multiple versions of the same assembly side-by-side.

The assembly which is used only by a single application is called as private assembly. Suppose you created a DLL which encapsulates your business logic. This DLL will be used by your client application only and not by any other application. In order to run the application properly your DLL must reside in the same folder in which the client application is installed. Thus the assembly is private to your application. Suppose that you are creating a general purpose DLL which provides functionality which will be used by variety of applications. Now, instead of each client application having its own copy of DLL you can place the DLL in 'global assembly cache'. Such assemblies are called as shared assemblies.