What’s the status of CAT.NET?

Question

I’m trying to find Microsoft CAT.NET for VS2010 and it looks like there was a beta of their 2.0 version but every link to it in Microsoft Connect is now dead. This is the most recent reference I could find: http://blogs.msdn.com/securitytools/archive/2010/02/05/how-to-use-cat-net-2-0-beta.aspx

Some references suggest it may have been rolled into FxCop. Does anyone know the status of the project?

Answer 1

Unfortunately it looks like the answer to my question is "In a perpetual state of limbo". Back in June there was a last minute design issue right before it was intended to be released.

In answer to my question on MSDN about the status I was told the same thing and that was now almost five months ago. There are a series of impatient follow-ups by the community on that thread and not a single word from Microsoft nor is there any update on the MSDN Security Tools page.

Don't hold your breath folks!

Answer 2

While they haven't released the new version, the good news is you can still use the old Add-in for CAT.NET 1.1.1.9 in Visual Studio 2010. All that is required is editing the default AddIn file to tell it to support the new version.

The file is installed to: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\Addins\Microsoft.ACESec.CATNet.AddIn. You can open it in a text editor and add a new node for <version>10.0</version>

After you edit the file, just restart Visual Studio and you should be all set.

If the AddIn file is not there, it should be in one of the locations specified in you VS Settings under Tools > Options > Environment > Add-ins / Macro Security.

Answer 3

Here us the Forum - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-AU/catnet/threads

Here is where they make comments on Dev and QA - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/securitytools/

Here is where you download it - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=e0052bba-2d50-4214-b65b-37e5ef44f146&displaylang=en

That is the 64 bit version. I found it ran without throwing a 'Out of memory Exception' that i got from the 32 bit version, but only comes in cmd line form

The 32 bit version snaps into VS2008 but hasn't been made ready for integration into VS2010

Note: I've been trying to get the 2.0 Beta today and haven't had an luck, as you said the links are all broken and the email address for the team is bouncing.

Answer 4

Any news on this? The MSDN forums don't have any updates

It seems that the best option is to use the v1.x version (the 32bit is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0178E2EF-9DA8-445E-9348-C93F24CC9F9D&displaylang=en)

Answer 5

On the topic of Cat.Net, checkout my 15+ Cat.NET blogs posts: http://blog.diniscruz.com/search/label/CatNet

In there you will see that there is a lot happening on the Cat.NET front (outside Microsoft :) )

Answer 6

Any further updates on this? It appears that the CAT.Net development is dropped by Microsoft. Few of the links that are available are broken. Has Microsoft dropped this development in favor of some other tools, any information on this would be helpful.