ASP.NET Tips: Getting SOS to work when commands fail

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re: ASP.NET Tips: Getting SOS to work when commands fail

Josh Coswell — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:28:34 GMT

Thanks for the details. Great.

Josh Coswell

http://riverasp.net

re: ASP.NET Tips: Getting SOS to work when commands fail

Tom — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:07:24 GMT

-- Question asked --

Can you comment more about why mscordacwks.dll was created as a separate DLL instead of just compiling that info into mscorwks.dll (the way it was in .NET 1.1)? The fact that it is a separate DLL is what causes these problems. Why wouldn't you want the debug binding info in mscorwks.dll? Was it factored out just to reduce the size of mscorwks.dll?

I ask this because I've run into a case where a client sent me a dump file, but now I have to ask them for their mscordacwks.dll. I don't have the same revision they're running, and I haven't seen their version before so it's not on my symbol server.

This is annoying to both me and my client, and I'm not even sure it's completely legal. If I ask a client to send me a copy of one of their core framework DLLs, aren't they violating the .NET 2.0 EULA terms? .NET is licensed as a supplement to the OS, but the OS license doesn't allow you to redistribute individual files (if I'm reading all the mumbo-jumbo right).

It would be REALLY helpful if Microsoft would make all of the mscordacwks.dll files for all .NET 2.0 revisions available for download from a single page and keep it up to date with new revisions. Then I could grab them all and use symstore to shove them all at once into my symbol server. The current process of trying to ask a client for the files or trying to get a server setup to just the right patch level is too much of a pain.

-- Answer --

So this file was introduced because of the many changes that took place for sos for 2.0. We are currently looking at options of what we can do to make it less painful. On a plus, you should be able to get the mscordacwks files from our public symbol server. So if you point to that, it should work correctly. If that is not the case, please let me know.

re: ASP.NET Tips: Getting SOS to work when commands fail

John P. Masseria — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:58:59 GMT

I'm trying to analyze an ASP.NET dump from one of our production web servers. Is there a documented way to get the same version of mscordacwks that matches the system the dump came from? I guess I could just go to that system and copy the file, but what if I were working remotely and didn't have access to the system that the dump came from. Does Microsoft store all of these files on their symbol server?

Thank you,

John

re: ASP.NET Tips: Getting SOS to work when commands fail

Tom — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:37:34 GMT

John,

There has been talk of storing those in the symbol server but I don't know the current status of that. I don't think they are currently. But I will see if I can find out.