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In AssemblyInfo there are two assembly versions:

  1. AssemblyVersion: Specify the version of the assembly being attributed.
  2. AssemblyFileVersion: Instructs a compiler to use a specific version number for the Win32 file version resource. The Win32 file version is not required to be the same as the assembly's version number.

I can get the Assembly Version with the following line of code:

Version version = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().GetName().Version;

But how can I get the Assembly File Version?

Rohit
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Enyra
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    What do you mean by "assembly file version" as opposed to "assembly version"? Can you give an example? – Xiaofu May 26 '09 at 08:24
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    @Xiaofu -- "Assembly Version" is what .NET uses internally. "Assembly File Version" is what shows when you right-click on a file and go to "properties" then the "details" tab. They are not the same. – rory.ap Jan 20 '17 at 18:04
  • I've found that the assembly version is what's used when determining the user.config location in AppData. – Kyle Delaney Oct 30 '17 at 17:54

5 Answers5

908

See my comment above asking for clarification on what you really want. Hopefully this is it:

System.Reflection.Assembly assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo fvi = System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(assembly.Location);
string version = fvi.FileVersion;
billinkc
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Xiaofu
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    @Xiaofu: Is there any way to get the version numbers from a AssemblyInfo.cs file instead? – Markus May 08 '12 at 12:07
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    One problem with this code is that, it'll actually return 1.0.*.* if you haven't specified Build and Revision numbers. AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(assembly.Location).Version.ToString(); will get you the 'compiled' version number - which should be the same as FileVersion, if you're setting both versions the same way. – Doguhan Uluca Oct 02 '12 at 21:24
  • Nice, but I much rather use the FileMajorPart / FileMinorPart / FileBuildPart / FilePrivatePart properties to get the integers rather than the preformatted FileVersion string. No one likes to see the "1.9.0.0" kind of thing in the title bar of a program. – Nyerguds Oct 03 '15 at 11:39
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    @DoguhanUluca They're two different things. That'll give you the assembly version, not the file version. "If you're setting both versions the same way" is a workaround, not a solution. – Nyerguds Oct 03 '15 at 11:41
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    Does `FileVersionInfo` only have `string` properties and no `Version` properties? – Kyle Delaney Oct 30 '17 at 17:59
  • This is good. I'm using it in a winforms project and it is working. – huseyin tugrul buyukisik Nov 02 '17 at 14:47
  • Why do you use **Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()**? That returns the current dll, but if I want the main executable I'll call: **Assembly.GetEntryAssembly()** – Yitzchak Jun 20 '18 at 11:25
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    @Yitzchak: `Assembly.GetEntryAssembly()` returns NULL for example in context of Office Add-ins, and also in many other cases. Also, if you think about addins/plugins - EntryAssembly is the host application, and most often you want the version of YourCode(TM) :) Aside from that, it's worth adding to this answer that `assembly.Location` used in the answer can be null as well (i.e. first random case googled out: https://github.com/Azure/azure-functions-host/issues/1233) and that probably happens even more often than having null entry-assembly. – quetzalcoatl Jul 26 '18 at 22:38
  • Is there a way to **set the file version, instead of just getting it?** – Momoro Feb 17 '20 at 05:37
  • Not working. Just returns the AssemblyVersion. – AH. May 27 '21 at 10:50
232

There are three versions: assembly, file, and product. They are used by different features and take on different default values if you don't explicit specify them. 

string assemblyVersion = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString(); 
string assemblyVersion = Assembly.LoadFile("your assembly file").GetName().Version.ToString(); 
string fileVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location).FileVersion; 
string productVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location).ProductVersion;
juergen d
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Check6
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    For when that blog post disappears some day, here it is boiled down for reference: `string assemblyVersion = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString(); string assemblyVersion = Assembly.LoadFile('your assembly file').GetName().Version.ToString(); string fileVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location).FileVersion; string productVersion = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location).ProductVersion;` – JMD Sep 11 '15 at 16:10
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    And for those wanting to specify these in the AssemblyInfo.cs file, for assemblyVersion use (with whatever numbers you want) === `[assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.*")]` for fileVersion use === `[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.*")]` and for productVersion use === `[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("2.0.*")]` The last one may take string suffix for `SemVer` compatibility:`[assembly: AssemblyInformationalVersion("2.0.0-alpha")]` – Jesse Chisholm Sep 08 '16 at 16:04
  • Addendum: `AssemblyFileVersion` may not use the `*` suffix notation. :( It needs all four numbers. `[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.0.1")]` – Jesse Chisholm Sep 08 '16 at 16:11
75

When I want to access the application file version (what is set in Assembly Information -> File version), say to set a label's text to it on form load to display the version, I have just used

versionlabel.Text = "Version " + Application.ProductVersion;

This approach requires a reference to System.Windows.Forms.

thatguy
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syntap
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    Note that this requires a reference to System.Windows.Forms, and so might not be suitable for all applications. – BradleyDotNET Jul 14 '14 at 16:59
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    Unfortunately, that's a string. Not ideal if you want to format it yourself to a more simple "v1.08" kind of format. Much handier if you actually get the version object to get the sub-components from as integers. – Nyerguds Oct 03 '15 at 11:36
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    Also, this picks up AssemblyFileVersion from AssemblyInfo, not AssemblyVersion, so watch out – dario_ramos Feb 08 '17 at 17:35
  • Could a high rep user edit this answer to make it more clear that this is for Windows Forms only? – jrh Sep 15 '17 at 17:32
  • This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks for the answer! – David Refoua Dec 17 '18 at 01:33
25

UPDATE: As mentioned by Richard Grimes in my cited post, @Iain and @Dmitry Lobanov, my answer is right in theory but wrong in practice.

As I should have remembered from countless books, etc., while one sets these properties using the [assembly: XXXAttribute], they get highjacked by the compiler and placed into the VERSIONINFO resource.

For the above reason, you need to use the approach in @Xiaofu's answer as the attributes are stripped after the signal has been extracted from them.

public static string GetProductVersion()
{
  var attribute = (AssemblyVersionAttribute)Assembly
    .GetExecutingAssembly()
    .GetCustomAttributes( typeof(AssemblyVersionAttribute), true )
    .Single();
   return attribute.InformationalVersion;
}

(From http://bytes.com/groups/net/420417-assemblyversionattribute - as noted there, if you're looking for a different attribute, substitute that into the above)

Ruben Bartelink
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  • Hey Ruben, 2 notes. First, the question asked for AssemblyFileVersion not AssemblyVersion. Second, Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetCustomAttributes( typeof(AssemblyVersionAttribute), true ) returns an array of length 0. I think this is because AssemblyVersionAttribute is not a custom attribute. – Iain Oct 14 '09 at 15:02
  • Re the first point, thats why I said "if you're lookign for a different attribute, substitute that into the above" (IIRC I didnt try it out). Re the second, that does seem plausible but dont have time to dig in... – Ruben Bartelink Oct 14 '09 at 16:12
  • Yeah, you actually can't get AssemblyVersion attribute via .GetCustomAttribute(), assembly version can be retrieved via `AssemblyName.Version` property only. But with every other attribute it's the right way to do it – Dmitrii Lobanov May 14 '13 at 05:06
  • @DmitryLobanov and Iain Thanks for the prompts. I hope the edit covers it sufficiently to make the answer worth keeping instead of deleting - let me know! – Ruben Bartelink May 14 '13 at 11:42
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    I used `AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute` instead of `AssemblyVersionAttribute` on .net core 3.1 – Vasya Milovidov Jan 02 '20 at 13:13
9

Use this:

((AssemblyFileVersionAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(
    Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(), 
    typeof(AssemblyFileVersionAttribute), false)
).Version;

Or this:

new Version(System.Windows.Forms.Application.ProductVersion);
Pieter Geerkens
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