Error: The dependency in cannot be copied...(references in vs.net2

[Dave Lessard]

Within my group of developers we have a list of library components we develop
and continuously enhance and upgrade. We don't have source control (that's a
bit of a sore issue for me) but when an update is made to a library .dll we
put these out in a released directory where all of our other
solutions/projects reference these "released" .dll's. These assemblies are
referenced directly to the assembly files themselves from other projects, not
the projects they are developed in. This causes the following problems and
is very frustrating.

We always have a versioning problem with VS.NET 2003. If we change the
version of these released library .dll's VS.NET always gives this error:

Error: The dependency in 'ASSEMBLY NAME' cannot be copied to the run
directory because it would conflict with dependency version 'OLD VERSION'
and 'NEW VERSION'

Involving overwriting the old version with the new version in the \bin
directory.

If the changes we put into one of these "released" library .dll's break's
other code, we don't care and just want all of our projects to be compliant
with the new library code changes.

I've tried deleting all the files in the \bin directory, that doesn't work.
It seems I've tried everything and can't get this error resolved. I end up
going back and hard coding in the version number to it's original! This is
not acceptable, because then we are releying in time/date to be sure the
application has the most recent .dll.

I know that referencing a project will solve this but I can't do it that way
because the projects are often in test mode and aren't "cleared" until the
actual build is done and the .dll is put in the released directory. Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.