Published: 28 February 2008

Following on from the news item last month about Microsoft’s intention to make the source code for the .NET Framework available, it has now started to make this a reality.

Specifically, you can now browse and debug the source code for the following .NET Framework libraries: .NET Base Class Libraries; ASP.NET (System.Web, System.Web.Extensions); Windows Forms (System.Windows.Forms); Windows Presentation Foundation (System.Windows); and ADO.NET and XML (System.Data and System.Xml).

Additional framework libraries including LINQ, WCF and Workflow are to be added soon. Currently the source code is downloaded by Visual Studio each time it is needed from a Source and Symbol server, but it is suggested that this might change to allow the information to be cached. A new MSDN forum on the Reference Source Server has been created, and there are instructions on how to enable Visual Studio 2008 to use the source and symbols during debugging.

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