Extracted solution dilemma

Question

I have extracted a solution created by a third party Dev House. When I open it in VS all I get is a page of HEX. Is this right or is it somehow protected? Thanks

Powershell used to extract...

$farm = Get-SPFarm
$file = $farm.Solutions.Item("soultionName.wsp").SolutionFile
$file.SaveAs("c:\temp\solutionName.wsp")

Answer 1

I don't think you can open a WSP in Visual Studio.

You can rename the file with a .cab extension and open it write from Windows Explorer. You'll see a few XML files (Manifest, Feature, Elements, etc.) along with the package's payload (assemblies, webpart definitions, user controls, etc.).