I have a project which has a set of binary dependencies (assembly dlls for which I do no have the source code). At runtime those dependencies are required pre-installed on the machine and at compile time they are required in the source tree, e,g in a lib folder. As I'm also making source code available for this program I would like to enable a simple download and build experience for it. Unfortunately I cannot redistribute the dlls, and that complicates things, since VS wont link the project without access to the referenced dlls.

Is there anyway to enable this project to be built and linked in absence of the real referenced dlls?

Maybe theres a way to tell VS to link against an auto generated stub of the dll, so that it can rebuild without the original? Maybe there's a third party tool that will do this? Any clues or best practices at all in this area?

I realize the person must have access to the dlls to run the code, so it makes sense that he could add them to the build process, but I'm just trying to save them the pain of collecting all the dlls and placing them in the lib folder manually.