How to invoke ildasm from command line

Question

I don't have Visual Studio, I am working from Visual Studio Code so I have to use the .NET CLI for everything. I have the .NET 6.0 SDK installed and can create and build dotnet projects just fine from the command line, but when I try ildasm to disassemble a .dll file, I get the classic 'ildasm' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. error.

I've found online that ildasm.exe is supposed to be located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6.1 Tools\ildasm.exe, but there is no Windows folder under Microsoft SDKs for me and a search within that folder for ildasm.exe returns nothing.

All the help I can find online is how to run ildasm from within Visual Studio which is useless for me since I have to use the CLI.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, in order to use ildasm you need to have Visual Studio Installed, because it only gets installed with VS.

But you can use these free tools, those are much better!

• ILSpy
• dotPeek