Question: What makes .NET assemblies easier to install and
to de-install than COM objects?

Answer: Assemblies are self-contained entities. They
contain everything that is necessary to dynamically load them,
to link them to other assemblies, and to reflect on their types.
It is not necessary to store information about assemblies in a
global registry (as it is necessary for COM components).
Installation becomes as easy as copying the assemblies to the
user's disk. For de-installation the assembly files simply have
to be deleted.

Since global assemblies are not only identified by their names
but also by a version number, it is possible to have several
assemblies with the same name but different version numbers
on the disk at the same time. They can even co-exist in memory
without interfering with each other. This simplifies the
installation of new applications that use components of which
older versions are still in use by other applications. Both the
old and the new assembly can be used at the same
time without getting in the way of each other.