If WPF is based on Visual Studio 2010, why can't I open it with a reflector?

Question

If Visual Studio 2010 is based on WPF, why can't I open it with a reflector?

In other words, devenv.exeit seems like a native assembly, so where is the WPF interface code?

Answer 1

The Visual Studio executable devenv.exeis indeed a native program. However, native programs can load the .NET runtime and thereby host the Windows Forms and WPF components. In fact, Visual Studio has always done this. Even before VS2010 adopted WPF for its editor and shell, various Visual Studio designers were implemented in Windows Forms. If you go into directories Common7\IDEand Common7\IDE\PrivateAssembliesyou will find many designer DLLs that you can view in Reflector (for example, the Microsoft.VisualStudio.ORDesigner.Dsl.dllLINQ to SQL constructor).

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