I think for this one Raymond has all bases covered because it is an (1)internal (2)programmer's tool (3)at Microsoft.
So one cannot really nitpick about how the wording of the error message is misleading :(
Still,
Raymond> I also find it astonishing that the person thinks that verifying whether the path can be found is totally unrelated to resolving a "Path not found" error.
Raymond> ...first we have a "Path not found" error, and there is a fully-qualified file name whose path couldn't be found. First thing to check is whether the path really exists.
Why?
The program says the system cannot find the path... Why would you (as the user) verify anything further? Of course the path does not exist, you don't need to verify it. If it did, the system would have found it! Don't you have any faith in the system?
Alternatively, if the program was in error, displaying an unrelated/incorrect error message, then again verifying that will only help finding out this. Then what? Will it help resolving the issue, or just make you label the issue as un-resolvable.
Verifying the path would not have helped (Waldo) resolving the issue. It would have helped the author of the program, it could have helped resolving a bug in Windows where it cannot find a path which did exist. It would be a waste of time for Waldo, he should have assumed the path did not exist right away...