CRM 2011 – The /sdk/list.aspx metadata browser has gone!

Someone asked me if certain fields were in a custom entity.  So to be clever I thought I would show him the quick and easy way to view the metadata.  The nice clever way of viewing the metadata through internet browser

e.g.

http://servername:5555/OrganisationName/sdk/list.aspx

or a slightly more real example

http://testserver:5555/HoskOrg/sdk/list.aspx

 

Anyway I did this only to get a server 404 error

404 – File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

What the?!?!

I then found this forum discussion, which confirmed Microsoft had removed it in CRM 2011, WHY

The old metadata browser that was included in CRM 3 & CRM 4 has been removed for CRM 2011.

In CRM 4 it only worked for the default organization.

We are working on a sample solution that will provide the same experience but it has been blocked for a while. We do intend to make this available before CRM 2011 is released.

At this point it will most likely be a solution that you can install and view from the settings area.

In the meantime, you will see that most of the sampe information for system entities has been included in the SDK documentation.

this is what the other fella suggest

 

Use the metadata browser solution provided in the SDK download package. This lets you view the metadata for an organization, including all customizations. The path for metadata browser solution is \sdk\samplecode\cs\metadata. Hope this helps.

 

It’s a bit disappointing because not only did I use that but it also made me look a plonker