Hi Bill, I'll answer your questions in the order you asked them.

1) It'll work with all versions but Steve does development using DNN 3.1/.NET 1.1 to make sure it's compatible. In the newer versions of DNN this will cause warnings in VS2003 which I've always found to initially look like errors. If the message says anything like, "This variable is outdated and you should now use this instead." (paraphrased) you can ignore it.

2) I don't have a good answer for that one. I've run into the same problem with lots of modules even some that I've written. Usually it's a simple fix of re-referencing the missing .dlls in the Solutions\Dotnetnuke.bin folder of your DNN install. Also you occasionally have to make sure your DNN install compiles without errors if you haven't before.

3) You don't need to use the DNN solution. There are a number of different ways of doing module development and the solution Steve uses, I believe, is the same as the rest of the core modules used.

4) The Repositories are the exact same. Steve was the programmer of the Gooddogs Repository and turned it over to be included with the DNN core. I don't think they include the source with any of the modules in the solutions but I could be wrong there.

5) That's a point where I agree with you and that's what you should expect. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer for you. In the Core Team's defense it would be difficult for them to cover all the different ways that modules can be developed. I can think of three or four off the top of my head and I'm sure there are others that I haven't.

Bill, I feel your pain. There have been times when I've opened up my own module that I've written only to be faced by reference errors that weren't there the last time I worked on it. Usually this only happens when I've updated the source code to a new version of DNN.

Here are the steps that I take whenever I'm about to open up any project source code:
1) Open the DotNetNuke source solution file found in the root of your DNN install.
2) Fix any reference errors that show you in that solution. It's been very rare that I've opened a DNN project and not had reference errors the first time.
3) Build the DotNetNuke solution and make sure everything compiles nicely
5) Now open the solution file of the project you want to load. Hopefully you won't have any reference errors now but if you do you at least know it has nothing to do with the core DNN solution.