I have a VSPackage with a WPF-based designer that has dependencies on a few DLLs, some in the solution and some outside the solution (including System.Windows.Interactivity.dll). If the loading of these DLLs is initiated by the XAML parser (such as referencing a resource dictionary defined in the DLL or using a Blend behavior defined in System.Windows.Interactivity), then the DLL fails to load. A XamlParseException is thrown that indicates the file could not be found.
The Fusion log indicates that the AppBase for the load is the VS IDE folder, specifically, the following:
LOG: Appbase = file:///C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0/Common7/IDE/
If the DLL is loaded via some other code path being encountered first, the load is successful and everything works -- the Modules window reveals that the DLL is loaded from the experimental instance.
I have ensured that my VSIX project references the assemblies and that they are, in fact, deployed to the experimental instance alongside the package assembly attempting to load them.
It seems that the XamlParser is hard-wired to the IDE folder for loads. I've seen a couple of other folks having encountered this issue and reported it on this forum, but I failed to find what the real resolution was.
Thanks very much in advance.