Location of linked referenced assembly in application bin subdir

[Michel Gallant]

I have a simple asp.net page, NET 1.1, and no web.config file.
I place the main assembly source in following directory:
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\cryptonet

I link in a referenced COM interop assembly via:
<%@ Assembly Name="Interop.CAPICOM" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="CAPICOM" %>
and originally, I had placed the assembly in the following application
bin subdirectory:

C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\cryptonet\bin

and the application compiled and executed properly when invoked from IE6.

Recently I upgraded to XP Pro (from W2k) and reinstalled IIS 5.1 (and reinitialized
asp.net for IIS).
Now, the application will not compile, and the error message returned to the client
shows that asp.net is not probing the bin subdirectory .. cryptonet\bin, but is
only probing, for the linked capicom assembly in the server root directory:
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\bin
(amongst other GAC locations of course):
I moved my capicom interop assembly there and all works properly.

So why is the application subdirectory (... cryptonet\bin) not being probed for the referenced
assembly??

Thanks,
- Mitch Gallant