ILSpy 8 is based on .NET 6.0 compared to .NET Framework 4.7.2 for the previous generations of ILSpy. All artifacts except the self-contained distribution are built framework-dependent, which means .NET 6.0 must be installed prior to starting ILSpy. This is true for:

• the installer
• the framework-dependent zip
• the VSIXs

Functionality is supposed to be unchanged and fully functional in this release compared to 7.2. If something works in 7.2 but not 8.0-preview1, please file a bug.

Breaking Changes

• ILSpy 8.0 will target net60-windows (see #2642) and all plugins will have to be migrated to the new platform.
  • Note: The ICSharpCode.Decompiler engine and NuGet package will continue to target netstandard2.0
• Platform-independent APIs will be moved to ICSharpCode.ILSpyX, currently that includes (but is not limited to):
  • LoadedAssembly and AssemblyList APIs
  • PdbProvider APIs
• LoadedAssembly.WaitUntilLoaded() was removed, because it leads to bugs; use await LoadedAssembly.GetLoadResultAsync() instead
• The MSIX project has been removed and the installer introduced in 7.x will take its place in the Microsoft Store going forward (at RC/RTM).

Contributions

• ilspycmd received support for the "nested directories" option on project export. (see #2636 by @GreyXor)
• ilspycmd support for generating a solution from multiple projects (based on code provided by @marwie in #2364)
• Namespace nesting in ILSpy tree view (based on code provided by @ds5678 in #2667)
• Fix the ordering of COM interface methods, properties, and events to appear in their originally defined order (see #2639 by @zhuman)

Enhancements

• Performance optimization of analyzers (see #2643)

Bug fixes

• #2634: target expressions of delegate references were not decompiled correctly
• #2632: Make sure that changing the setting "ExpandMemberDefinitions" has an effect when refreshing a decompiled view.
• #2629: Indentation of method-call chains.
• #2653: ILSpy reports wrong visibility for overridden protected internal properties if located in another assembly.
• #2610: Explicitly qualify members in TemplateBindings.
• #2655: TranslateArrayInitializer crashes with out of order array init

And many other fixes, for a full list click here.