Strong Names in config files - painless?

[NewsBot]

The advantages of using strong names on my assemblies are clear. They help prevent tampering, they're used as CAS evidence, they let me use the GAC and COM+ if I so choose - the benefits are obvious.

 

However, using a strong name means that every assembly-qualified reference I have - configSections in my app.config files, reflection-based plug-ins, ASP.NET code-behind*directives,*etc - have to use a specific version number. This is annoying, especially if using Continuous Integration, and the version numbers change all the time.

 

I'm sure I'm not the first to run into this problem, but I can't seem to find the painless way to do this.

 

My first instinct was to use and in my app.config to redirect any calls to my assemblies to the current version, but that will just mean I have to update my app.configs (and web.configs) with every build. It's better than doing it for every assembly-name, but still icky and error-prone. Ideally this will be done as a task inside my build script, but still dangerous.

 

So what is the recommended way to do this, taking into account I have 5+ app.config files, each with 3-10 entries, some of which have to reside in strongly-named assemblies?

 

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