Sharepoint woes: Could not load file or assembly - BadImageFormatException - asp.net

Question

I've been working on a project that's been a rather seat-of-the-pants experience.
We have MOSS 2007 and Silverlight 3 installed.
We're trying to make use of some new 3rd party software, Visual Fusion(http://www.idvsolutions.com/products_overview.aspx).
While working through the tutorial I ran into a bit of an issue. All I really have to go on is the guidance package and sample stuff they provided so it's still a little fuzzy.
Basically when I debug the project in Visual Studio 2008, instead of loading the default.aspx page, I get this on my browser instead:
Server Error in '/' Application.
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Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:
[BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.]
System.Reflection.Assembly._nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String codeBase, Evidence assemblySecurity, Assembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection) +0
System.Reflection.Assembly.nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String codeBase, Evidence assemblySecurity, Assembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection) +43
System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(AssemblyName assemblyRef, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean forIntrospection) +127
System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(String assemblyString, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean forIntrospection) +142
System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(String assemblyString) +28
System.Web.Configuration.CompilationSection.LoadAssemblyHelper(String assemblyName, Boolean starDirective) +46
[ConfigurationErrorsException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.]
System.Web.Configuration.CompilationSection.LoadAssemblyHelper(String assemblyName, Boolean starDirective) +613
System.Web.Configuration.CompilationSection.LoadAllAssembliesFromAppDomainBinDirectory() +203
System.Web.Configuration.CompilationSection.LoadAssembly(AssemblyInfo ai) +105
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetReferencedAssemblies(CompilationSection compConfig) +178
System.Web.Compilation.WebDirectoryBatchCompiler..ctor(VirtualDirectory vdir) +163
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.BatchCompileWebDirectoryInternal(VirtualDirectory vdir, Boolean ignoreErrors) +53
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.BatchCompileWebDirectory(VirtualDirectory vdir, VirtualPath virtualDir, Boolean ignoreErrors) +175
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CompileWebFile(VirtualPath virtualPath) +86
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) +261
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultWithNoAssert(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) +101
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVirtualPathObjectFactory(VirtualPath virtualPath, HttpContext context, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean noAssert) +126
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(VirtualPath virtualPath, Type requiredBaseType, HttpContext context, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean noAssert) +62
System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory.GetHandlerHelper(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath virtualPath, String physicalPath) +33
System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory.System.Web.IHttpHandlerFactory2.GetHandler(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath virtualPath, String physicalPath) +40
System.Web.HttpApplication.MapHttpHandler(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath path, String pathTranslated, Boolean useAppConfig) +160
System.Web.MapHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +93
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +155
I've spent the last few hours poking around for answers and it seems to be related to the fact that I'm running this all on a 64-bit machine, but all the references to workarounds I found were rather vague.
What other information do I need to provide to help pinpoint the issue? I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment.

Answer 1

if you're running on a 64bit machine, then ipso-facto the sharepoint installation is 64bit. Most of the sharepoint assemblies are x64 only, so this error is a result of your product trying to load the 64bit assembly into a 32bit process (running 32bit clr.)
Without knowing the product that's trying to load the sharepoint assembly, it's hard to tell what's going on. If this is custom code, set the project build target architecture to x64 and rebuild.
-Oisin