c# - "Could not load file or assembly System.Drawing or one of its dependencies" error on .Net 2.0, VS2010 and Windows 8

Question

I am getting a FileNotFoundException on a Windows Forms Application project, with the following message:

Could not load file or assembly 'System.Drawing, Version=4.0.0.0, 
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. 
The system cannot find the file specified.

To replicate the problem:

• Select New, Project, choose .Net Framework 2.0 as the target and pick Windows Forms Application as the project type.
• On the properties of the form created by default, select a value for the Icon property. Any .ico file will do. This will embed the file on the resx file.
• Compile and run the application.

When I do this, the program stops on the line this.Icon = ((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("$this.Icon"))); with the following exception:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException was unhandled
  Message=Could not load file or assembly 'System.Drawing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
  Source=mscorlib
  FileName=System.Drawing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a

I’m getting this on Visual Studio 2010 SP1, recently installed on Windows 8 Developer Preview. If I change the project properties to target .Net Framework 4, the error goes away.

On the Form1.resx file, I can see that the version of the System.Drawing assembly is explicitly stated as 2.0:

<assembly alias="System.Drawing" name="System.Drawing, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />

Any ideas?

Answer 1

This is a bug. I have seen it too. It happens because your .resx file is pointing to 4.0.0.0 version of System.Drawing where one does not exist. To overcome this problem i usually edit the .resx in notepad to change 4.0.0.0 to 2.0.0.0. The bug is introduced by following the exact steps that you have outlined.