Can I legally modify the method if there is a text which indicates to not modify it, in Windows Forms App?

Hi @Rustam Balushka ,

Thanks for reaching out.

Regarding your concern, you are not legally prohibited from modifying that method. The comment you’re seeing (“do not modify…”) is not a license restriction or legal rule, it’s simply a warning from the tooling.

That method (InitializeComponent) lives in the Designer file and is auto-generated by the WinForms designer. Whenever you drag and drop controls or change properties in the UI designer, Visual Studio rewrites that code for you.

Because of that, modifying it manually can lead to a couple of issues:

• Your changes may be overwritten the next time the designer runs
• The designer itself may become out of sync or break, making the form hard to edit visually

So while you can edit it, it’s not recommended unless you fully understand the implications.

I would suggest these approaches:

• Use the Designer (Properties window / drag-and-drop) for UI changes
• Put your custom logic in your main form file (Form1.cs), not in the designer file

For example, instead of changing button properties inside InitializeComponent, you can safely do it like this:

public Form1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    button1.Text = "Click me";
}

Hope this helps! If my answer was helpful, I would greatly appreciate it if you could follow the instructions here so others with the same problem can benefit as well.

The comment in Form1.Designer.cs is a technical guideline, not a legal or licensing restriction.

The Windows Forms Designer generates and maintains the code in InitializeComponent and the rest of the *.Designer.cs file. Editing it manually is allowed, but not recommended because:

• The designer can overwrite or remove manual changes the next time the form is edited in the designer.
• Incorrect edits can easily break the designer or the form layout.

Supported and recommended approaches are:

• Change control properties and layout through the Designer surface and the Properties window. The designer then regenerates InitializeComponent for those changes.
• For custom logic, event handlers, and other code, use the main form code file (for example Form1.cs) rather than editing the designer file directly. Event handlers are added in the code file, not in InitializeComponent.

Designer-generated members can be controlled via properties such as Modifiers and GenerateMember in the designer, which then affect the generated code rather than requiring manual edits in the designer file itself. For example, changing a control’s Modifiers to Protected or Public allows inherited forms to work with that control, and setting GenerateMember to false prevents a field from being generated.

So modifying the method is technically and legally allowed, but it is unsupported and fragile; use the designer and the main code file for changes whenever possible.

References:

• How to: Use the Modifiers and GenerateMember Properties
• Tutorial: Add code to the picture viewer Windows Forms App (.NET Framework)
• Walkthrough: Demonstrating Visual Inheritance