Assembly.LoadFrom with path and full assembly name

Question

I am trying to implement dynamic loading of certain assemblies based on Environment.Is64BitProcess.
This basically works like this:

• Register an event handler for the AppDomain.AssemblyResolve event

• In the event handler load the assembly from the CPU type dependent sub path:

  private Assembly OnAssemblyResolve(object sender, ResolveEventArgs args)
  {
      // args.Name is the display name of an assembly, e.g.:
      // MyAssembly, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=abcdefghijklmn
      if(!args.Name.Contains("MyAssembly"))
          return null;
  
      var path = Path.Combine(GetCpuTypeDependentPath(), "MyAssembly.dll");
      return Assembly.LoadFrom(path);
  }
  

Now, this has the problem, that it doesn't check for the version, publicKeyToken etc of the loaded assembly.
What I would like to do now is to call Assembly.Load and simply supply an additional probing path. I know that this doesn't work as there is no such overload. Is there some other way to achieve my goal?

Answer 1

Just compare the properties of the assembly you found with the one that was requested. For example, a version check could look like this:

private static Assembly CurrentDomain_AssemblyResolve(object sender, ResolveEventArgs args) {
    var name = new AssemblyName(args.Name);
    string path = System.IO.Path.Combine(IntPtr.Size == 8 ? "x64" : "x86", name.Name + ".dll");
    path = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location), path);
    var asm = Assembly.LoadFrom(path);
    var found = new AssemblyName(asm.FullName);
    if (name.Version != found.Version) throw new System.IO.FileNotFoundException(name.FullName);
    return asm;
}

Answer 2

Short of probing assemblies yourself I don't see that you can do this. You'd only have to fire up another AppDomain that will search for matching assembly, so that you can unload assemblies loaded during probing. Unfortunately