Debug .NET assembly binding aka Find what dll is used and why

Question

We\'re having some mystery version mismatches on our referenced dll\'s loaded at runtime.

Errors like:

Could not load file or assembly X or on

Answer 1

The Assembly Binding Log Viewer (aka Fusion Log Viewer, fuslogvw.exe) shows useful data for these sorts of issues such as:

• What process is trying to load an assembly
• The full name of the assembly (version, culture, public key token)
• The assembly that's causing the load
• Which paths were probed for the assembly

You can log all binds or just bind failures.

fuslogvw.exe should be accessible directly from any VS command prompt.