I need to merge my assemblies that have references to the XNA Framework. When merging the assemblies (exe and dll's) into the executable, the game starts but crashes after a while when leaving the Splash screens and entering the menu system. I tried to merge with ilMerge, Eziriz .net Refactor and IntelliLock but nothing worked.

I found a thread about merging on the forums but with nearly zero result. To explain what should be merged and why:

• The assemblies that should be merged are my game engine modules (dll) and the game executable.
• The reason of merging is obfuscating the result without exposing public methods in the dlls.
• Not the framework itself should be merged!

Thank you so much! :)

I would contact Eziriz and see if they can work out the issue. Since merging assemblies isn't a part of .Net its not something that MS are going to support.

ILMerge has a contact at MS - maybe he will have time to try your project out and see if its merging properly or not.

Are you running the app after the mege or after the merge and obfusticate - could it be the obfusticator?

Compile and merge a debug build and attach a debugger and see where its crashing - maybe there is some code that is relying on the assembly name or something.

As long as the project you try to merge uses a content reader in one of the merged assemblies it might be useless - not to say impossible - to merge. The only work around would be to outsource the content readers to a public and unobfuscated assembly?! But that would mean that you have to open the doors in your main code again. :/

But thanks a lot for your help ZMan. :)

Marc

The ZMan:

You can still obfusticate the content reader as a stand alone DLL. And in this case it doesn't matter that the public interface is visible becuase they all content readers have the same public interface.They have to otherwise it won't work.

Ahhh ... yep, you are right! Thank you so much! :)