Microsoft® .NET Compact Framework (Core Reference)

Generating Longer Error Messages in Exceptions

In the full .NET Framework, a descriptive text message is associated with each exception. For reasons of space, the .NET Compact Framework DLLs do not contain this extensive text. Instead, the text of exceptions is contained in a separate resource assembly that can be downloaded with the application only if you require it. For the core classes of the System namespace, the text messages are found in System.SR.dll.

If you add a reference to your projects to System.SR.dll in the .NET Compact Framework directories, you get the full text of error messages in your exceptions. No other action is required; adding the assembly to a project will cause that assembly to be deployed.

This DLL is relatively large ...