Downloading .NET 4 source code

Question

I\'ve been trying to download the source code for .NET 4 (http://referencesource.microsoft.com/netframework.aspx) since yesterday but it just doesn\'t work.

Clicking

Answer 1

I've had this happen before many times. It is downloading the installer, it just has the wrong name. I don't think it's worked properly in months.

You can just change the extension from aspx to msi and then install it.

netframework.aspx -> netframework.msi

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IE10 appears to work now, where it didn't before (not sure if this applies to all versions of IE now).

It appears that when you download the file, the webpage is using a postback to netframework.aspx and sets an HTTP header to notify the browser of the content. Note the filename set in the content-disposition header which is being ignored by Chrome.

Cache-Control:private
content-disposition:attachment; extension-token; filename=DotNET.msi
Content-Type:Application/binary-stream
Date:Fri, 10 May 2013 18:31:05 GMT
Server:Microsoft-IIS/7.5
Transfer-Encoding:chunked
X-AspNet-Version:2.0.50727
X-Powered-By:ASP.NET

Answer 2

Microsoft has recently updated .NET Framework Sources website, see this blog post: A new look for .NET Reference Source.

All sources, including project files, can now be downloaded directly: http://referencesource-beta.microsoft.com/download.html No installers, no stupid javascript protection, just a direct link to a ZIP file.