What dependency was that?

Are you a .NET developer?

What do you do when you get a FileNotFoundException when loading a managed assembly? The error message is mostly unhelpful: "Could not load file or assembly 'x' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified." Great if the problem file or assembly is 'x' but if the problem is a dependency, which one is it?

I know what to do if the problem is in native code. Fire up Dependency Walker (depends.exe) and load up the problem dll. Makes debugging dependency issues in native code a doddle.

The Microsoft tool fuslogvw.exe is one option but finding the right log line can be difficult and (the thing I really hate) the UI isn't resizable.

What I really want is a nice tree view of all the static dependencies. If that's what you want then take a look at Workshare.Labs.DotNetDepends. It shows a nice tree view of all the dependencies. Dependencies are coloured to tell you the load status. Green for dependencies that load normally, pastel green for dependencies loaded via publisher policy files, red for a dependency for failed to load and pastel red for a dependency that has a dependency that failed to load.

Workshare.Labs.DotNetDepends.exe requires .NET 2 and compiled as Any CPU. On x64 systems it will load assemblies as a x64 and may not be able to load mixed mode x86 dlls. An update for that is in the future.

And the interesting fact for the day is that System loads System.Xml loads System loads ...