We have no intent to modify the source code as mentioned above, we just want easier access to it. Thanks for sharing info on how to modify the web.config in another way, even though I still think we would want to handle it "the standard way". Also, it's not all that rare that the third party components themselves wants to edit the web.config file and thus it becomes more complicated if it is not available.

Don't get me wrong here, this is quite possible to do by just running the SRC version of DNN and you can just deselect the projects you don't want from Configuration Manager and never build them again. My question was mostly related to the information on DNN page that you should always stay away from the SRC version and wanted to know if others actually used the install version for development. Perhaps I should mention that we use DNN as a starting poing for a total custom development of a new system and that it will all be housed internally in one installation, so module portability etc isn't important for us.  

Picking up on this again. Just tried to download the DNN 8.0.3 install package and tried to build it in Visual Studio 2015. And of course it failed as always.

So, how are you supposed to do some serious multi module development without first downloading the Source package, open it in Visual Studio, correct the usual amount of errors, and then use that as a base? Is there ANY version of DNN that can be built strait off in Visual Studio that DOES NOT generate a lot of errors that you need to fix manually? How do you guys do when developing for DNN in a large scale project with perhaps 10-20 different modules where it isn't practical to just have a separate project for each module?