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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T02:41:51+00:00

I wouldn’t usually bother to obfuscate a web application DLL but right now I

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I wouldn’t usually bother to obfuscate a web application DLL but right now I have to share some server space with someone who might have a conflict of interest and might be tempted to steal the deal and decompile it. Not an ideal solution I know but hey.

So I am using VS 2005, a web deployment project (which compiles into a single DLL) and Dotfuscator community edition. When I obfuscate the DLL the web application breaks and I get some message like

Could not load type 'Browse' from assembly MyAssembly

So I searched around and found that if I disable renaming then it should fix it. Which it does. But now when I look at the DLL using .Net reflector I can see everything again. So this seems kind of pointless.

Is there a way to get this to work?
Is there a better way to protect my DLL from someone I have to share a server with?

UPDATE:

I figured out my problem. All the classnames have changed but now all my 

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="mycode.aspx.cs" Inherits="mycode" %>

is incorrect because mycode no longer exists. It is now aef or something. Is there any tool out there that will also change the names of the Codefile and Inherits tags?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You’re close to the solution.
    In your situation I don’t know in which context ‘Browse’ is used, but are you referencing it somewhere as a string?

    There are some things which simply can’t be obfuscated when you’re using it in a certain way.

    For example, when you have custom objects which is bound to a control. Those properties which you’ve specified as a displaymember of valuemember cannot be obfuscated.
    This is because the properties are defined as a string. So at designtime there’s no connection between the control and the actual property, but at runtime there is.
    I don’t know how to explain it better; but here’s some code:

    // custom object
Public Class MyObject
{
    string Test() { get; set; }
}

// here the object is bound to a combobox

MyCombo.ValueMember = "Test";  // The Test property cannot be obfuscated because of this 'indirect' reference.
MyCombo.DisplayMember = "Test";
MyCombo.DataSource = lstListOfMyObjects;

    Hopefully it addresses your problem. If not, let me know.

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