This Bugzilla instance is a read-only archive of historic NetBeans bug reports. To report a bug in NetBeans please follow the project's instructions for reporting issues.
Recognizing of .ser files in clazz module is very likely obsolete now. Known usages should be covered with generic InstanceDataObject (SwingBrowser.ser in core/ui, it should be converted to .instance anyway). It only clutters the code with few more classes. Currently it is also probably broken - expanding of core/ui/src/org/netbeans/core/ui/resources/SwingBrowser.ser shows an error node together with info what is contained in the stream. Also the usefullness of instance support for both .class and .ser objects is questionable. If we need it to answer isApplet/Bean/Main there are other better way than using this support to load the class into VM and analyze it relying on some parts of old src hierarchy.
less classes and possibility to proceed further with cleanup of old source hierarchy (ClassElement.forName)
Support of ser data object is feaure. See clazz.netbeans.org. We can consider what features are uselless and what are usefull in future releases.
Resolving all issues with milestone "future" as LATER. If you feel strongly that it should be implemented please reopen and set the target milestone to "next".