How to update the VB DLL COM used by ASP without bringing down the WWW service?

[FreeOperator]

Dear all,
I have created a DLL COM with VB and it will be called by an ASP page using "CreateObject". Since our web server hosts e-commerce, any operation which causes the web service to be down even for a couple of minutes is not welcomed. This becomes a big headache when I have to update my DLL on the server. In order to release the lock IIS places on my DLL, I have to run "net stop iisadmin /y" from the command prompt first. Next, I update the DLL and afterwards, run "net start 3wsvc" and "net start msftpsvc" to restore the WWW and FTP service. This will bring our web service off line for a while and therefore is making our webmaster sick. Is there any way around it so that I don't have to pause the web service while updating the DLL? On the other hand, I am planning on placing my DLL under the control of MTS. It seems you can add a DLL component located on another PC to the MTS package on the server. Is this a workable solution for my question? Please advise and thanks in advance...

Tracy

[Cakkie]

Well, you don't. I know this isn't the answer you were hoping for, but if a dll is used by IIS, it wont release it until all the sessions which used the dll are closed. This means if a user is surfing the site and uses the dll on the first page, it will remain used until the session ends. A session can end on 3 ways.

1) IIS goes down, all sessions abort
2) the session is aborted by the asp page
3) the session times out. A session times out after about 15 minutes inactivity.

The problem ofcourse is that when a user is in a session, and closes the browser, the session's still open. If he reconnects to the site, a new session is started.

To put it another way, session leave a lot of garbage, which is most cases can only be cleaned up by IIS. Somewhere in that garbage is the dll being locked.

Tom Cannaerts
slisse@planetinternet.be

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning -- Rich Cook