Newtonsoft.Json.dll is installed in the GAC

Thank you for taking the time to evaluate Test Studio. I have alerted our development team to this problem and explained it's a deal breaker for you. As soon as I receive a response from them I will update you on this problem.

I heard back from our development team about this problem. First it is high on their priority list to fix (i.e. get that DLL out of the GAC). The bad news is that we're in the middle of finishing our Service Pack 2 release. it is due to go live next week. We don't have time to include the fix for this in that service pack. They have agreed to work on it as a high priority as soon as Service Pack 2 goes live. Also once we have a fix in place we'll can create a private build just for you and send it to you... thus you will not have to wait until our next official public release many weeks away.

In the meantime one of our developers suggested a workaround you may be able to implement yourself. There is a way to configure an application to look for a required DLL in an alternate location. By modifying the .config file your executable you should be able to force it to load Newtonsoft.Json.dll from somewhere other than the GAC per this documentation and this documentation. In theory this should get around the issue until we can officially fix it in Test Studio.

Please keep me updated on your progress with this.

• Build the Json.NET source code yourself and update the assembly version
• Install a newer version of Newtonsoft.Json.dll into the GAC and hope it doesn't break Test Studio which would now use the newer version

Here's our current status on the Newtonsoft.Json.dll problem: in our upcoming 2013 R1 release we've managed to remove most of our dependencies on this DLL. This means upgrading the version of this DLL stored in the GAC is less likely to break anything in Test Studio, but no I cannot guarantee it.

Unfortunately we ran out of time for us to remove all dependencies on this DLL. We will continue our work to break our dependence on this DLL post 2013 R1 release. For now you're right there is no reasonable solution to this problem. It's still a high priority on our list of things to fix. We will address it ASAP once 2013 R1 is officially released.

We have already done the work to not install Newtonsoft.Json.dll in the GAC. Our next release (due out this week) will include this fix.

I must apologize, I just discovered I had wrong information. The build I was talking about was released on Wednesday, but it does not contain the fix for the Newtonsoft.Json.dll in the GAC problem. I am told that development deliberately withheld that change from our service pack 1 release fearing the changes were to great and carried too much risk breaking something else in the process.

The good news is that I got development to escalate this and are now working on creating a custom build just for you containing this fix. We should be able to have this ready fairly quickly. I will contact you as soon as we have something ready for you to try.

Yes, I can confirm (as also stated here) that our build 2013.1.1002 (finally) gets Newtonsoft.Json.dll out of the GAC. To make sure your upgrade goes smoothly, I recommend doing a full uninstall first, just to insure Newtonsoft.Json.dll is removed from the GAC, then install this LIB.

Normally you don't need to do an uninstall first to upgrade Test Studio. This case is different however because we want to insure Newtonsoft.Json.dll is properly removed as needed by you.

The Kudos are always welcome and will be passed along to the entire team. I look forward to hearing some positive results from you (when you're able to try it out).