Are there any free refactoring tools available for Visual Studio 2003? ReSharper seems to require a license key.
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A:
I'm in a similar boat. Inherited a .NET 1.1 project tied to old third party components. I'm working on migrating it standard WinForm components so I can move it to 2005 or 2008.
Sadly no. There are free refactoring tools for VS 2005+ but none for 2003.
- DevExpress offers Refactor! Pro for $99, which has support for 2003.
- ModelMaker Tools offers CodeExplorer, also $99. With support for 2003.
- You've already discovered ReSharper, which is the most popular.
There used to be a few others but those are the only ones left.
If you want to experiment you could try SharpDevelop. Its an open source .net IDE with a lot of refactoring support built in. Version 3 has dropped support for .NET 1.1 but they still offer versions 1 and 2 for download as well. I've used it myself. If your careful you can set up dual IDEs. SharpDevelop for refactoring and general development and VS2003 for anything SharpDevelop can't handle.
Update: SharpDevelop's refactoring support in older versions is very immature, it only supported function renaming. The latest version, which dropped support for .NET 1.1, has a number of useful refactorings.
codeelegance
2009-03-04 20:08:11