Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource.Redist package support will end with .NET 6

[richlander]

This issue is a locked mirror of dotnet/runtime#71231. See that issue for discussion.

Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource.Redist package support will end with .NET 6

The Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource.Redist package has historically allowed us to fast-track EventSource API bug fixes out-of-band for .NET Framework 4.x. In recent years we continued to ship versions of this package concurrently with .NET Core releases, but the last time it was used to intentionally distribute out-of-band fixes for .NET Framework was package version 1.1.28 from 2015. The fixes that originally made the package useful have long since been applied to the .NET Framework in-box EventSource API and now we plan to phase out this package. Support for the current 6.0 version of the package will continue for as long as .NET 6.0 is supported but no future versions concurrent with .NET 7 and beyond are planned.

We recommend developers targeting .NET Framework 4.x use the in-box version of the EventSource API, System.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource. Developers who want to track future feature development in the EventSource API should target System.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource included in the latest available release of .NET runtime, currently .NET 6.

Details

How to migrate away from Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource.Redist

1. For apps and libraries targeting .NET Framework ensure you are targeting at least version 4.6.2. For apps and libraries targeting
   .NET Standard, .NET Core, or .NET 5+ no targeting change is needed.

2. Replace references in source to the namespace Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing
   with System.Diagnostics.Tracing instead. For example

using Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing;

should now be

using System.Diagnostics.Tracing;

3. Remove package references to Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracking.EventSource.Redist from project files. You can do this in Visual Studio UI by selecting References->Manage NuGet packages... , then selecting the package from the installed package list and click the uninstall button. Alternately you can use the Uninstall command in Visual Studio package manager. For apps developed using the .NET CLI tools you can use the dotnet remove package command.

What happens if I do nothing?

The Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing.EventSource.Redist package should continue to work as-is, but support for the latest major version of the package will end November 12, 2024. After that point the package will receive no further fixes for security or any other reason. There are no known security vulnerabilities in this package but it is always possible new issues will be discovered in the future.