In my daily development there are three tools that I keep open almost constantly:  Visual Studio 2008, Windows Debugger, and Reflector.  The first is obvious, the second is for extreme-debugging, and the third so I can have a clue what I’m working with (...I have NO idea how people do .NET or Silverlight development without reflector!)  The first two I access with icons, while the third is one that I open and close at least 10 times a day.

To quickly access reflector (as well as Notepad2 and a whole host of sysinternals apps!) I throw it in my Windows folder so I can access it from the Run box.  Not only that, but I typically rename tools I throw in there to have only one letter.  Reflector is “r”.  So, I hit Win-R and type “r”.  Up comes reflector.  Here’s the thing though: I work in both .NET and Silverlight equally.  Yet, Reflector only loads ONE of them.  What to do?

The fix is simple: copy r.exe to rs.exe.  When I load r.exe, I select .NET.  When I load rs.exe, I select Silverlight.  Now I when I hit Win-R, I can type either “r” or “rs” depending on what framework I want to inspect.  You could even take the concept further by making a “rf.exe” for the compact framework”  Each “x.exe” will have it’s own “x.cfg” so the configurations won’t bleed over each other.

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