Just ran into this nice error while trying to generate a proxy using the SvcUtil and /reference option in a .NET 4.0 Project. Error 13 Cannot load reference assembly 'C:\MySource\bin\Debug\MyReference.dll' The solution makes total sense as the current version of SvcUtil is for .NET 3.5 only. You can get around this by changing your path to: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\ NETFX 4.0 Tools\ svcutil.exe Alternatively you can download the latest Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 And then change the SvcUtil path to: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\ v7.1 \bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\svcutil.exe Hope this helps someone.