Introduction
Have you ever created a project that runs perfectly (yea right!) in your pc but when you deploy it at the production pc it crashes before the first
window appear? In most of the cases windows will prompt you to send the error to
Microsoft and if you press the link 'What data does this error report contain?'
you will see the exception that causes the problem. If this is a FileNotFoundException then the problem is that you haven't shipped every assembly your application
needs or you have shipped the wrong version.
Assembly Binding Log Viewer
Most fortunately Microsoft have created a tool that can help us to trace down what assembly is causing the problem. This tool is called
FUSLOGVW.exe and you can find
it in your development environment under the 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin' folder. You may copy this file to the production environment and run it.
If it fails to load then try to copy flogvwrc.dll from the 'Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\' folder (I didn't need this
DLL in Windows Embedded).
Settings
Before you can use it you have to set the Log settings. Press the settings button from the right list and
- check 'Enable custom log path'
- set a path at the TextBox, e.g., 'C:\TEMP'
- select the radiobutton 'Log all binds to disk'
How to use it
Now you can run your application and then press 'refresh' at Fuslogvw. You will see a list of all bindings your application uses. The first item is the problematic assembly,
it's the last tried loading assembly and the root of the problem. Try to solve this bad reference ether by coping the correct assembly to the production PC or by referencing
the correct assembly from your code.
If the problem persist then follow the above steps to see the rest problematic assemblies.
