I’ve just checked by using Explorer to look at windows\assembly, it doesn’t list files as it would for a normal directory but shows
Assembly name, Version, Culture, Public Key Token, Processor Architecture
(what is an assembly Culture ?????)

I’ve built a couple of COM Add-Ins which of course load fine when the PIA’s are installed but won’t otherwise.

In that case they simply don’t load and it’s hard for anyone but the developer (and even I forget at times) that they’ve probably not been loaded because the PIA’s don’t exist. I hate how if there are any problems with loading an Add-In it silently omits it, no warnings, no logs, zip .

If I can programmatically check that PIA’s have been properly installed I can at least display a warning.

Might be able to make it a prerequisite for the installer. Though just beacuse it’s installed initially doesn’t mean it can be removed at some later time, and then have same problem.