About Side-by-Side Assemblies

A Windows side-by-side assembly is described by manifests. A side-by-side assembly contains a collection of resources—a group of DLLs, Windows classes, COM servers, type libraries, or interfaces—that are always provided to applications together. These are described in the assembly manifest.

Typically, a side-by-side assembly is a single DLL. For example, the Microsoft COMCTL32 assembly is a single DLL with a manifest whereas the Microsoft Visual C++ development system run-time libraries assembly contains multiple files. Manifests contain metadata that describes side-by-side assemblies and side-by-side assembly dependencies.

Side-by-side assemblies are used by the operating system as fundamental units of naming, binding, versioning, deployment, and configuration. Every side-by-side assembly has a unique identity. One of the attributes of the assembly identity is its version. For more information, see Assembly Versions.

Starting with WindowsВ XP, multiple versions of side-by-side assemblies can be used by applications running at the same time. Manifests, and the assembly version number, are used by the loader to determine the correct binding of assembly versions to applications. Side-by-side assemblies and manifests work with applications and the side-by-side manager as illustrated in the following figure.

In the preceding example, both Comctl32.DLL version 6.0 and Comctl32.DLL version 5.0 are in the side-by-side assembly cache and available to applications. When an application calls to load the DLL, the side-by-side manager determines whether the application has a version dependence described in a manifest. If there is no relevant manifest, the system loads the default version of the assembly. For WindowsВ XP, version 5.0 of Comctl32.DLL is the system default. If the side-by-side manager finds a dependence on version 6.0 stated in a manifest, that version is loaded to run with the application.

Several key system assemblies are being made available from Microsoft as side-by-side assemblies. For more information, see Supported Microsoft Side-by-side Assemblies. Application developers can also create their own side-by-side assemblies. For more information, see Guidelines for Creating Side-by-side Assemblies. In many cases it is possible to update existing applications to use side-by-side assemblies without having to change the application code.

Developers are encouraged to use side-by-side assemblies to create isolated applications, and to update existing applications into isolated applications for the following reasons:

• Side-by-side assemblies reduce the possibility of DLL version conflicts.
• Side-by-side assembly sharing enables multiple versions of COM or Windows assemblies to run at the same time.
• Applications and administrators can update assembly configuration on either a global or per-application configuration basis after deployment. For example, an application can be updated to use a side-by-side assembly that includes an update without having to reinstall the application.

Show windows side by side in windows 10

I’ve always right clicked on the taskbar and selected «Show windows side by side.» Now on my Windows 10 laptop, the two windows display very narrow and only on one half of the screen. Is there something I can do to make two documents display across the entire width of the screen?

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Aero Snap is one of the interesting features of Windows 10 that automatically arrange windows by tiles or side by side. Here are the different methods on how you can customize your windows view on your desktop using Aero Snap:

Method 1: Side by side windows.

This method will make each window take half of the computer screen allowing you to arrange it side by side.

1. Press and hold Windows logo key.

2. Press the left or right arrow key.

Method 2: Vertical Snap

You can also use Aero Snap to maximize or minimize the open windows on your desktop.

1. Press and hold Windows logo key + Up arrow key to snap the window to the top halves of the screen.

2. Press and hold Windows logo key + Down arrow key to snap the window to the bottom halves of the screen.

3. Press Windows logo key + Up arrow key twice to maximize the window.

4. Press Windows logo key + Down arrow key twice to minimize the window.

Method 3: 2×2 Snap

2×2 Snap will let you put up to 4 windows on your desktop using a combination of the Windows logo key + left/right/up/down arrow key.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have other questions.

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Based on this thread and another in a different forum, the problem with side by side and stacked windows not working is due to a bug whereby various apps come up and appear to be on the desktop. When you do a side by side, you might have only 2 windows you see — everything else is minimised — but after the operation you wind up with screen real estate as if you were sharing with 2 3 4 or more shadow apps that do not show up.

If you use task manager, you will see phantom apps — e.g. calculator, calendar, skype, all of these come from C:\Program Files\WindowsApps. You might also see SystemSettings. If you kill these, you will generally find that Side-By-Side and Stacked windows behave as expected. Rarely, you may also have to stop/start (re-cycle explorer).

A guaranteed fix is to logoff (not reboot — just logoff) and login. Things work ok until you use a few modern apps and then they start to leak and screw things up.

Randomish8 (from other forum) may have reduced the problem to ApplicationFrameHost.exe as opposed to the mix of Apps I have stumbled across. I have not run into it yet but his solution may be more comprehensive.

I use Cygwin and I have a script that looks for processes in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps or named Systemsettings and kills those. If that is not sufficient I have another script that also recycles Explorer. So far that has always fixed things. I will try to look for ApplicationFrameHost.exe instead to see if that works.

In any event, you are not going nuts. The windows arrangement features works expected and as they always did when you log in and eventually degenerate as apps start to leak. Microsoft is definitely on the hook to fix this but in the meantime, there are ways of coping.

Show windows side by side does not work

Show windows side by side does not work. Looks the same as show windows stacked.

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Apologize for the difficulties that you’re experiencing regarding this issue and also for the delay in getting back to you. Do not worry. Let me help you in fixing this issue.

What exactly happens when you try to show Windows side by side?

Does the same thing happen with all types of windows of different programs?

Provide us a screenshot of the issue by referring to the following article on how to do so:

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The problem is that the windows do not use the full screen.

In Windows 8.1 if I had two windows side by side the whole screen was used. Windows 10 seems to want to use only two thirds of the screen. This cuts off a lot of things in each window that I want to see. Windows 8.1 did it right. It’s broken in Windows 10.

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Show windows side by side does not work. Looks the same as show windows stacked.

This is the screenshot of what I get when I click «Show windows side by side» — it’s exactly the same as when I click «Show windows stacked». I use this command every day, so I’m dying now that it no longer works in Windows 10

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Show windows side by side does not work. Looks the same as show windows stacked.

This is the screenshot of what I get when I click «Show windows side by side» — it’s exactly the same as when I click «Show windows stacked». I use this command every day, so I’m dying now that it no longer works in Windows 10

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I can only laugh at the moron who designed snap and side by side. I guess can’t they count how many windows it take to fill a screen. They like quads and even if you end task ‘ApplicationFrameHost’ it likes 3 windows please.

I seen tens of thousand jquery web pages that could blow this code to pieces. How many employees does MS have?

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I’m going to take a wild guess and say this «side x side» was coded this way so that you can quickly bring up one of many windows to full screen. That might be fine for some, but it doesn’t cut the mustard for me.

I WANT to be able to actually READ info on one window so that I can cut and paste into the other window. The size of these reduced size windows make that hard or impossible.

While I wasn’t a big fan of Win 8, my wife still has it on her computer and right clicking on the bottom allows you to go «side x side» with 2 windows taking up the entire screen instead of 2/3’s of the screen.

There SHOULD be an option to make this command the same as in Win 7, Win 8, and Win 8.1. I think it worked in XP as well.

alexyv

«Нам часто в жизни не хватает друзей и доброты…»

Лешка пишет… о музыке, компьютерах, поездках и о себе.

На прошлой неделе столкнулся с интересной проблемой DLL Hell’а.

Чтобы решить проблему с библиотеками, в Windows XP появился механизм side-by-side assemblies. В системе может быть установлено несколько версий одной и той же библиотеки, а каждое приложение должно явным образом указать, какую версию следует загрузить. Такой механизм явного объявления зависимостей устраняет ошибки из-за загрузки несовместимой версии библиотеки.

Но не все так гладко… Начиная с Visual Studio 2005, библиотеки С++ runtime поставляются в виде side-by-side assemblies, а компилятор/линкер автоматически создают manifest файл, в котором указываются эти зависимости.

Проблемы возникают, когда приложение использует DLL, которые собираются не из исходного кода. Например, если приложение и используемые библиотеки были откомпилированы разными версиями Visual Studio, в системе должны будут находится две (или даже больше) разных версий C++ runtime.

Вот именно с такой проблемой я и столкнулся. Сначала обнаружилось, что у нас две зависимости: от версии 8.0.50608.0 и от 8.0.50727.762. А через несколько дней среди зависимостей вдруг появилась еще и третья версия 8.0.50727.4053.

Раньше библиотеки Visual C++ вместе с манифестом лежали в папке с остальными библиотеками, и всё работало. (То есть они использовались как private assembly.) Недавно выяснилось впрочем, что не совсем всё работало: обнаружилось, что на тестовых машинах были установлены библиотеки версии 8.0.50727.42. А если вдруг их не оказывалось, то ничего не запускалось.

Две разных версии assembly не могут одновременно находится в папке с приложением, потому что файлы называются одинаково. Как обойти это, описано в статье A solution to two references to different versions of CRT, MFC, ATL in one application manifest file. Workaround #2 не помогал, потому что зависимости росли не из EXE-файла, а из DLL. В комментариях нашлось решение и для DLL, которое более подробно описано здесь. После добавления файликов .2.config приложение заработало.

Но с появлением зависимости от третьей версии, которая появилась после установки обновления, пришлось бы создавать такие файлы почти для каждой DLL-библиотеки, а их не мало. В итоге, чтобы жизнь была проще, был выбран первый вариант решения: использование Merge-модулей, тем более для установки уже использовался Windows Installer. Merge-модули устанавливают не только сами библиотеки, но и policy-файл, который «перенаправляет» предыдущие версии на новую версию. Таким образом, поставка всего одной версии библиотек и установка глобальной политики перенаправления версий решило все проблемы с зависимостями и избавило от создания кучи config-файлов с одинаковым содержанием.

На эти исследования пришлось потратить почти два дня, зато теперь в арсенале имеются новые знания.