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NDepend–Don’t extract it in your Program Files!

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Patrick Smacchia, the creator of NDepend, if I would check out the latest edition of their code quality tool. As I had an upcoming software audit assignment planned, I thought it would be a great occasion to see what NDepend brings to the table and how it can help me to improve my understanding of an unfamiliar codebase.

After a reply to Patrick I got a link to the Professional edition but you can download a trial version here. NDepend doesn’t have an installer but is provided as a zip file.

I extracted it to my %Program Files% folder and had a look at what was in there:

VisualNDepend.exe looked promising so I double clicked on that executable. Unfortunately nothing happened !?

Hmmm, maybe I should not be so eager and first read the README.txt file available in the zip?

OK, the first 2 lines in the README immediatelly point out my mistake;

This file contains information about NDepend files when unzipped.
Don't unzip these files in '%ProgramFiles%\NDepend'.
This might provoke problems because of Windows protection.

And indeed after extracting it to another folder, I could run the executable. Time to start our journey! (But that is for another post)

Remark:

In case you really want to install NDepend in your %Program Files%, you should right click on the zip file before extracting and click on Properties.

In the Security section at the bottom, check the ‘Unblock’ checkbox and choose ‘Apply’. If you now extract it to your %Program Files% it should work.

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