Managed ActiveX control refresh bug in Visual Studio 2003 and 2005

ActiveX controls can be either managed or unmanaged. These controls encapsulate specific functionality such as file downloads or Excel spreadsheets and are usually embedded in the html page or aspx page at design time or at run-time. The controls are downloaded on demand by the browser and provide the client with the encapsulated functionality. With Microsoft Visual Studio 2003/2005, managed user controls can be used as a base to creating ActiveX controls that may be embedded in a browser. However, you may find that, after changes are made to the design surface of the user control, the changes are not reflected in the internet browser. This typically happens after a few iterations of development.
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Resetting IIS will not correct the problem. Rebooting will usually correct the problem. However, there is a better solution. Use the gacutil application to clear the cache. The command is gacutil /cdl at the command prompt.
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As already stated, managed controls that run in internet explorer must be downloaded to the client. These managed controls cannot be stored in the GAC. The managed controls are stored in a special assembly download folder in the windows directory. The /cdl command is especially adapted to clean that particular directory.
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Note that the command may fail if there is a lock on the assembly. You should close Visual Studio, Internet Explorer and any program that may have access to the directory and re-run the /cdl command.
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Also note that unmanaged ActiveX controls typically do not cause this problem.

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