If I create an assembly, how can I see the assembly/components from with the VS.Net "Add..." dialogs?

There are two ways in which this can be done. The first way is to use the provided Public assembly folder that is installed with VS.Net.

This folder is: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies"

All assemblies in this folder will be picked up by the "Add Reference" dialog under the ".NET" tab, and the "Customize Toolbox" under the ".NET Framework Components" tab.

Now, you are not limited to using this folder. You can specify your own public assembly folder by adding a key to the registry.

If you look at the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\AssemblyFolders

You will see a subkey named "PublicAssemblies". This is where the path above is specified as a public assembly folder. To add your own folder, create a key (e.g. MyAssemblies), and set the default value to be the desired path.

Contributed from George Shepherd's Windows Forms FAQ