Failed to load data access DLL, 0x80004005 - hm

Me and some colleagues of mine recently all stumbled over the following error when analyzing .NET minidumps:
I opened a the minidump and typed !CLRStack. What I got was:

Failed to load data access DLL, 0x80004005
Verify that 1) you have a recent build of the debugger (6.2.14 or newer)
2) the file mscordacwks.dll that matches your version of mscorwks.dll is
in the version directory
3) or, if you are debugging a dump file, verify that the file
mscordacwks___.dll is on your symbol path.
4) you are debugging on the same architecture as the dump file.
For example, an IA64 dump file must be debugged on an IA64
machine.

You can also run the debugger command .cordll to control the debugger's
load of mscordacwks.dll. .cordll -ve -u -l will do a verbose reload.
If that succeeds, the SOS command should work on retry.

If you are debugging a minidump, you need to make sure that your executable
path is pointing to mscorwks.dll as well.

OK, so I followed the step 1 through 4...
ad 1) I'm using version 6.7.5.0 for good reasons
ad 2) Don't know what that means...
ad 3) Why should a dll be in my symbol path?!?
ad 4) The architecture is x86_32 on both machines

So I tried .cordll -ve -u -l

0:000> .cordll -ve -u -l
CLRDLL: Unknown processor type in image C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\mscorwks.dll
CLR DLL status: No load attempts

The following sentence finally helped me:

If you are debugging a minidump, you need to make sure that your executable
path is pointing to mscorwks.dll as well.

So I executed:

0:000> lmv m mscorwks
start end module name
79e70000 7a3d6000 mscorwks T (pdb symbols) C:\windbg\symbols\mscorwks.pdb\6D3E0DE91A284256A48A60718DC9CDEB2\mscorwks.pdb
Loaded symbol image file: mscorwks.dll
Image path: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\mscorwks.dll
Image name: mscorwks.dll
Timestamp: Fri Apr 13 09:15:54 2007 (461F2E2A)
CheckSum: 005635C7
ImageSize: 00566000
File version: 2.0.50727.832
Product version: 2.0.50727.832
File flags: 0 (Mask 3F)
File OS: 4 Unknown Win32
File type: 2.0 Dll
File date: 00000000.00000000
Translations: 0000.04b0 0000.04e0 0409.04b0 0409.04e0

And...

0:000> .exepath+ C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\

Finally...

0:000> .reload
...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
CLRDLL: Loaded DLL C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\mscordacwks.dll

And my !CLRStack worked ;-)

SOSAssist >> Toolbox

Tess mentioned in her recent post '.NET Finalizer Memory Leak: Debugging with sos.dll in Visual Studio' a tool named SOSAssis written by Ingo Rammer. I was curious, clicked on the link and looked at the screenshots.
I couldn't believe that there is a tool out there that eases .NET production debugging in such a way. If you ever walked down the objects tree via sos commands you will get tears in your eyes when you look at the Stack Objects window!!!


[click to enlarge...]

I googled for sosassist and rammer and just got 4 relevant hits?!

So I needed to update on this after my very first look at the tool as I'm totally amazed! This thing should be in the toolbox of every .NET developer.

Next I will follow up on this tool soon with more experiences.

Windbg version 6.8.4.0 is out (I'm still keeping 6.7.5.0)

Microsoft released a new version of Debugging Tools for Windows (containing Windbg). The Highlights in Version 6.8.4.0 are very roughly described. Still the integrated .NET Support that came up with version 6.7.5.0 by accident (see Pat Styles [MSFT] comment in this post) is not available.
Luckily different versions of windbg can be installed side by side (via XCopy) and I'm keeping my 6.7.5.0 for managed debugging as it works pretty well.