2147024894 - The system cannot find the file specified

Question

I just spent quite few hours trying to find out why my application all of a sudden stopped working. Usually when things go wrong you get an exception but when the .Net framework cannot find a referenced introp in the executing directory or in the GAC nothing happens!
When trying to debug the legacy C++ (VS6) code that called my .Net Code which in turned called another legacy object I just received the error code 2147024894 - The system cannot find the file specified. It took a while for me to figure out that it was the interop dll in executing assembly directory that was missing. Felt the need to post this somewhere, it might help someone somewhere and save a few hours of valuable developing time.
Can someone answer me? Why in the world does not the framework throw an understandable exception with the message “interop.myLegacyComObject.dll is missing”, instead of just letting nothing happen…
C# - interop - Regasm - C++ - Typelib - tlb

Mike Gold · Answer

good question!  I've run into the same problem a few times when dealing with legacy code, and I can't stand this ambigious error.  You are sort of forced to figure out exactly which file is missing.