Signing C++\CLI assemblies in VS 2010

I lost a lot of valuable time because of this problem, so I thought to share the solution that I got as a combination of other solutions posted by people who are more expert than me in this field.

• If your assembly is a third party assembly and you can not access it, or ask for a signed version from its provider, then you can use the solution here: Adding a Strong Name to a Third-Party Assembly .
• If you have the C++/CLI project, you can use the same file used for signing the project you are trying to reference to this C++/CLI. This is usually an .snk file. use this file and follow the steps here: How to sign C++/CLI assemblies with a strong name. If this still doesn't work continue to the next point.
• the answer of user634175 , on this link :  Is there an easy way to sign a C++ CLI assembly in VS 2010?  solved it to me in combination with the previous step.

the answer was adding the following to the project file:

<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" 

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
    <!-- snip -->
    <ItemDefinitionGroup>
      <Link>
        <KeyFile>$(LinkKeyFile)</KeyFile>
      </Link>
    </ItemDefinitionGroup>
</Project>

Hope this saves some time for some of you.