How does Windows SideBySide work? Any Documentation?

Question

I recently asked a related question about SideBySide problems. I figured out that installing a shared assembly with installer works, while using a private assembly does not.

I also found another related question mentioning sxstrace.exe. But this seems not to exist for Windows XP.

• Is there any resource with detailed information about the SideBySide Manager? I know Microsofts Using Side-by-side Assemblies, but how can i debug such problems?
• Does a sxstrace.exe exist for Windows XP? Where can i download it? I worked with the dependency walker, but it seems that it does some interpretation different from that of the SideBySide manager.

Answer 1

Junfeng Zhang's blog is a great resource for SxS; in particular, Diagnosing SideBySide failures will help you out.

Answer 2

If it's a manifest parsing problem you will see it in event viewer.

A more to the metal approach would be to use Process Monitor (with filter on your project) to see which registry entries your application attempts to prove and fails on. This way you will know which object it fails to find. I know it takes time, but it worked for me. For best results learn to use filtering features of Process Monitor to limit the set of output you will need to go over.