The C# Dev Kit extension

Bug Reports
1

I just opened my dotnet solution and I got this message:

The C# Dev Kit extension may be used only with Microsoft Visual Studio Code, vscode.dev, GitHub Codespaces from GitHub, Inc., and successor Microsoft, GitHub, and other Microsoft affiliates' products and services.

before I was able to use it, right now this is a big issue for dotnet developers. Even though we couldnt debug the projects, at least the linter worked perfectly with Cursor, and all other features, but now this is really sad. Any ideas C# devs outthere?

9 Likes
2

Same here, since today

3

With MS releasing Copilot Agent, I imagine they’re cracking down on marketplace/extension use in VSC forks.

4

For reference: github issue

Also Reddit thread

Another reddit thread

Share your voice!

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5

Mine is fine, after got the message, i can still use it normally.

6

Share your voice…to do what? Cursor has been skirting under the EULA. Microsoft has started enforcing it more judiciously. ■■■■, Cursor technically also shouldn’t be using the VS marketplace at all, since that’s also part of the same EULA.

Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong here. The cursor team ignored the obvious restrictions and now they need to figure out how to deal with them.

Speaking of, what’s the plan now? Because without c# or c++ tooling, cursor is less than useless.

1 Like
7

Here the workaround to continue using until a proper solution.

  • Disable Auto Update for C# DevKit and C# plugin.
  • Then Right click and choose Install Specific Version… item.
  • Choose an older version.
  • Restart it
  • That’s it!
    image
    image512Ă—367 27.2 KB
5 Likes
8

I doubt this is a real workaround. I’m not a legal expert, but even if using an older version is technically allowed, it doesn’t solve the long-term problem. Sooner or later, the old version of the extension will stop working with newer C#/.NET versions. And that means also for Unity3D development, for instance!

If there’s no mitigation, that means Cursor might become ineffective — or even unusable — for .NET development in the not-so-distant future. Other vendors, like Windsurf, probably face the same issues.

This is a major challenge for the Cursor team! I’d strongly advise not to ignore it.
Maybe Microsoft would even be open to some kind of licensing deal for the plugin…

2 Likes
9

Cursor is probably crushing the Microsoft fork in terms of adoption right now. I would really love to see Cursor sponsor an open alternative to the MS extension marketplace.

Edit: Just found one: https://open-vsx.org

As for the Dev Kit, I’ve expressed my dissent on the GitHub issue brought up here, but I really don’t think there’s anything we can do. Would it be viable to go back to OmniSharp?

Edit: Having good success so far with DotRush: Open VSX Registry

4 Likes
10

Feels like bad faith on Microsoft’s part and trying to force people into using VS Code when they want to use alternatives like Cursor.

I hope Microsoft reconsiders, because it leaves a very bad impression of them.

Otherwise, I think we’ll need to switch to using open-source alternatives like the above post mentioned.

1 Like
11

it worked

12

it’s basically Microsoft handicapping the ability to use VS Code forks even though it’s open source… Pretty scummy on their part and they did the same BS before with the debugger.

13

Tried DotRush with Unity 3d and c# it worked fine (I had to uninstall c# dev kit and c# extentions)

2 Likes
14

Tried DotRush but Im encountering the same issue that other C# extension I found, in Cursor does not recognize the lint errors, like right now, it generated a code for me, in Cursor didnt generate any at dev time, when you build it then you find out that it generates an error. That with the C# Dev Kit didnt happen to me.
Other than that, It is a great extension and i would highly recommend it

1 Like
15

Everything should work out of box (Including Roslyn analyzers, codeFixes and refactorings):

16

Handicapping what exactly? VS Code was open source and still is, but the MS Marketplace has never been open source. That’s why the WindSurf devs chose to use the OpenVSX marketplace from the beginning — and the Cursor devs should have done the same.

Read the docs and terms of use before judging anything. The Cursor devs were aware of this limitation and still chose to illegally create wrappers around the MS Marketplace

Not to mention, C# plugin devs are now facing a ton of bugs from editor forks they never intended to support (like modified versions of VS Code)

So yeah — MS didn’t do anything wrong here, nor did the C#/C++/Python plugin devs. Cursor did

17

I totally understand about the MS license and all that stuff, but Im paying for a professional license which allows me to use the MS products in my business. Im not saying Cursor should violate any license, Im just asking for a solution where the dev can decide what IDE to use and in this case it would take 2 parts, MS and Cursor team

1 Like
18

Hey! We rolled out an immediate fix a few days ago and will have a longer term solution out very soon. Thanks all for the reports and support.

TLDR: MSFT has a handful of extensions which are closed-source. (Remote access, Pylance, C/C++, C#). The latest releases of the specific extensions no longer work in Cursor or other non-MSFT editors.

Moving forward, Cursor is transitioning away from these extensions. We are investing in open-source alternatives which already exist in the community and will bundle these into the next version to enable a seamless transition.

Please let us know if you have thoughts or questions! Here to help in anyway we can.

5 Likes
19

@truell20 so, with investing, you mean active sponsoring these open source projects ? Would be a good approach, yes. Else I would have worries, that some of these essential extensions for Cursor might die in the long run…

20

We’re going to dedicate engineerings on our staff to maintaining these extensions directly.

6 Likes