Willy thanks for perservering ..
Latest update
I built a simple vc8 testc.exe console program and could load and use the
samplec.dll i have talked about .
I then used filemon.exe to trace file activity, and to my suprise the
execution path tries about 30 odd
directories (some often repeated) for the samplec.dll but NONE of them where
the directory
that MSTestProject.d ll and SampleC.dll lived in !! These are in a common
debug or release directory
Go figure !!
It would seem the process starts from "UnitTesting.vs host.exe" which loads
and calls the MSTestProject.d ll
which when running can't find samplec.dll
SO as a temp. measure i added the debug directory to the windows PATH env.
and restarted the vs2005 IDE
Now the process finds samplec.dll and now i have the new error set ....
"A first chance exception of type 'System.DllNotF oundException' occurred in
MSTestProject.d ll
Additional information: Unable to load DLL 'SampleC.dll': This application
has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.
Reinstalling the application may fix this problem. (Exception from HRESULT:
0x800736B1)"
So even if i get past this issue, i don't understand why the system did
not try the directory that all the binaries where living in .
I seem to have the correct manifest settings ..
NB: While in debug and changing exceptions to always thrown, several of the
following occured before the issue above.
"Managed Debugging Assistant 'LoadFromContex t' has detected a problem in
'E:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\v stesthost.exe'.
Additional Information: The assembly named
'Microsoft.Visu alStudio.Qualit yTools.Executio nCommon' was loaded from
'file:///E:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio
8/Common7/IDE/PrivateAssembli es/Microsoft.Visua lStudio.Quality Tools.Execution Common.DLL'
using the LoadFrom context. The use of this context can result in unexpected
behavior for serialization, casting and dependency resolution. In almost all
cases, it is recommended that the LoadFrom context be avoided. This can be
done by installing assemblies in the Global Assembly Cache or in the
ApplicationBase directory and using Assembly.Load when explicitly loading
assemblies."
Thanks