(As a side note, it would be interesting to use Reflector to decompile Reflector itself and remove the expiration date or extend it to the far future. I know it's illegal and unethical, but it would be a fun and interesting exercise.)

I Reflectored Reflector once and I found that the source was obfuscated. I don't think that would be a trivial task.

Most compiled code doesn't have debug info and internal symbols. Yet, changing something like an expiry date is often a trivial task. Obfuscation just means you'll actually have to poke around a bit instead of just searching for "isExpiryDateReached".

Reflector was written by a smart guy. IIRC the obfuscation partly consists of assemblies stored as resources in the executable assembly, and loaded dynamically. But no doubt you're right - it could be disentangled.

Better and more ethical to re-write.

Interestingly, I'm pretty sure that the original wasn't obfuscated, and Red Gate obfuscated it after they received it from the original developer.

Reflector's always been obfuscated; Lutz Roeder had a paid-for version as well alongside the free one.

(You don't think the first thing we tried with Reflector was to reflect Reflector? :) )

Reflector was not always obfuscated. Old versions embedded an unobfuscated but weakly encrypted dll with the core program.

well - that's unfortunate.