Assembly Viewers

I was slogging through the documentation looking for details on GACing custom functoid assemblies that I know I had seen before when I ran across the BizTalk Assembly Viewer. This nifty little tool is a Windows Shell extension for examining deployed BizTalk assemblies and assembly types and lets you see references and view the XML code for various types including schemas, maps, orchestrations and pipelines. You could peek under the hood to see how it is done. [Edit: D'oh! Reflector won't eat this dll -- it's native]

On a related note, I have been using GacView by Nir Sofer to snoop around the GAC and, when the mood strikes, to make local copies of GACed assemblies. It is a helpful little tool to have around and can help solve those irritating reference problems that always happen at 2am.