Case of the Incorrect Side-by-Side Configuration

So I had downloaded the latest version of BIND DNS server for Windows from http://www.isc.org/downloads as I wanted to have an up-to-date version of DNS diagnosis tool dig to be available. However if you just tried running dig.exe by itself  (without running full install, on Win7 x64) you got the following error :

The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail.

So what’s side-by-side configuration anyway (a.k.a WinSxS or SxS)

We see from XP to Vista/Win7 a shift from INF described OS to component based descriptions. A component consists of

• unique name based on version, language and processor architecture of component
• one or more binaries
• catalogue file
• XML file describing installation
• associated registry keys
• associated services
• security permissions for files
• etc.

All the components of the Windows operating system are found in %windir%\WinSxS folder and registry key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide. The WinSxS folder is the only location these files are found – other instances across the disk utilize hard-links back the original in the WinSxS folder.

Benefits from this system over XP include:

• No more prompt for media when running SFC (System File Checker)
• No more prompt for media when adding Windows features
• New versions of whole component leave the original file as well. The new component is projected onto the whole system, but the original is left untouched. This results in:
• Increased System Reliability
• Uninstalling a security update can automatically result in next-highest version of component being installed
• Removes “out-of-order” uninstall issues found in Windows XP and earlier
• Installing optional components ensures the latest version is installed -not the “RTM” version
• Because relationships between all components are described on system, the requirements can be responded to by the OS (i.e. during uninstall of components)

But what does this have to do with running Dig? Let’s look…

I launched Process Monitor (http://live.sysinternals.com/ProcMon.exe) and set a filter to Process Name IS dig.exe. I then launched the app

Ok nothing looks bad there, right? So we use SxSTrace utility, which is in-built to Windows 7. It has the following syntax

WinSxs Tracing Utility.
Usage: SxsTrace [Options]
Options:
   Trace -logfile:FileName [-nostop]
       Enabling tracing for sxs.
       Tracing log is saved to FileName.
       If -nostop is specified, will not prompt to stop tracing.
   Parse -logfile:FileName -outfile:ParsedFile  [-filter:AppName]
       Translate the raw trace file into a human readable format and save the re
sult to ParsedFile.
       Use -filter option to filter the output.
   Stoptrace
       Stop the trace if it is not stopped before.
Example:  SxsTrace Trace -logfile:SxsTrace.etl
          SxsTrace Parse -logfile:SxsTrace.etl -outfile:SxsTrace.txt

I launched the command with SxSTrace Trace -LogFile:SxSTrace.etl

While that was running, in another window I ran dig, it threw the error, then went back to SxSTrace and stopped the reporting.

I then ran SxSTrace Parse -LogFile:SxSTrace.etl -outfile:ParsedTrace to get the data into a text file

This gave us the following output

=================
Begin Activation Context Generation.
Input Parameter:
    Flags = 0
    ProcessorArchitecture = Wow32
    CultureFallBacks = en-US;en
    ManifestPath = C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\dig.exe
    AssemblyDirectory = C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\
    Application Config File =
—————–
INFO: Parsing Manifest File C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\dig.exe.
    INFO: Manifest Definition Identity is (null).
    INFO: Reference: Microsoft.VC80.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”8.0.50727.6195″
INFO: Resolving reference Microsoft.VC80.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”8.0.50727.6195″.
    INFO: Resolving reference for ProcessorArchitecture WOW64.
        INFO: Resolving reference for culture Neutral.
            INFO: Applying Binding Policy.
                INFO: No publisher policy found.
                INFO: No binding policy redirect found.
            INFO: Begin assembly probing.
                INFO: Did not find the assembly in WinSxS.
                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\Microsoft.VC80.CRT\8.0.50727.6195__1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.DLL.
                INFO: Did not find manifest for culture Neutral.
            INFO: End assembly probing.
    INFO: Resolving reference for ProcessorArchitecture x86.
        INFO: Resolving reference for culture Neutral.
            INFO: Applying Binding Policy.
                INFO: Find publisher policy at C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_policy.8.0.microsoft.vc80.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.4940_none_516d712b0f495a45.manifest
                INFO: No binding policy redirect found.
            INFO: Begin assembly probing.
                INFO: Did not find the assembly in WinSxS.
                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\Microsoft.VC80.CRT\8.0.50727.6195__1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.DLL.
                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.DLL.
                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.MANIFEST.
                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\Microsoft.VC80.CRT\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.DLL.
                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Users\malc\Downloads\BIND9.8.1rc1\Microsoft.VC80.CRT\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.MANIFEST.
                INFO: Did not find manifest for culture Neutral.
            INFO: End assembly probing.
    ERROR: Cannot resolve reference Microsoft.VC80.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”8.0.50727.6195″.
ERROR: Activation Context generation failed.
End Activation Context Generation.

OK – so we see some files not found. Why don’t these show up in the ProcMon filter we tried earlier? Let’s reset our ProcMon filter and add a filter Path Contains Microsoft.VC80

What we find is CSRSS.exe is actually trying to access the file and failing to find it…

This file is part of the Visual C++ 2005 Runtime from Microsoft. Looking at the extracted set of bind files we find the runtime installation here:

OK so I can install that to resolve the issue. That’s boring though. I want it to run from my USB disk, without installing anything…As I love my troubleshooting tools to “run anywhere”

So I extracted the redistributable using the command

vcredist_x86.exe /C /T:C:\support\vc

which extracted the files into C:\support\vc

This extracted an MSI which I extracted using command

msiexec /a vcredist.msi /qb TARGETDIR=”C:\support\vcredist”

This gives us a folder structure like this:

We then need to check the \Windows\WinSxS\Manifests folder. Here we see selected the manifest file that was missing via our SxS log

We then open this file in notepad and find it has the following contents

These are the three DLLs we need. We find these in the extracted folder under Windows\System32 folder

We simply copy these three DLLs into the same directory as dig.exe. In addition we now need to copy x86_Microsoft.VC80.CRT_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.6195_x-ww_44262b86.manifest into the same folder as dig.exe and rename it to Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest

The new files added:

Dig is now working – no install required

This technique is also useful for other cases when you can’t install SxS DLLs – i.e. running an app from USB key, or from within Windows PE.

Note: Typically it is better to fully install the app. This method it is possible to miss other dependencies … but is useful on occasion none the less.