title: .net framework 3.5 source code
body: <p>I'm trying to get hands on the <strong>source code for .net Framework 3.5 SP1</strong> for several hours now, and the place I <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131208040728/http://referencesource.microsoft.com/netframework.aspx" rel="nofollow">remember</a> getting 3.5 sources in the past, <a href="http://referencesource.microsoft.com/netframework.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://referencesource.microsoft.com/netframework.aspx</a>, is dead.</p>
  
  <p>Just "3.5" without the "SP1" would be fine as well. It does not need to be bit-exact, but allow me to dig around and see how the stuff is implemented. But the parts of the 4.5 sources on referencesource I checked have changed too much to be useful for me.</p>
  
  <p>I tried NetMassDownloader with the following arguments, but both say "not available" to all dlls, including the most basic ones like 'System.dll' and 'mscorlib.dll'</p>
  
  <pre><code>NetMassDownloader -d "C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5"
  Netmassdownloader -d c:\windows\Microsoft.NET -d "c:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So is it, in 2015, still somehow <strong>possible to get (as much as possible of) the framework source v3.5 (SP1) code as a zip / tarball</strong>?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>N.B. Previously I tried to configure Visual Studio 2012 so that I can step into the .net sources in a myriad of suggested ways on the net, including pointing to the </p>
  
  <pre><code>http://referencesource.microsoft.com/symbols
  http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>to no avail. The simplest now seems to be to get a simple archive with the source files - if I could get my hands on them.</p>