I have a MacBook Pro, fairly new, intel based, 4G RAM. I may need to work on a Sharpoint project, so I'm assuming I'll need Visual Studio and Sharpoint Designer. Is using VMware an option, if so, what Microsoft OS should i use, and what general VMware settings should I use (RAM and disk size).
VMware Fusion is a good option.
As to Microsoft OSes for SharePoint development, you have two choices: Windows Server 2003/2008 or Windows 7.
I've been developing with a Windows Server 2003 VM for SharePoint for about a year. I'm still using Server 2003 because it matches our dev/qa/prod environments.
I would agree with the post above that VMWare is a good choice. As for what OS if your are doing true enterprise level SharePoint development then you will need 2003/2008 however you can run WSS on vista. As for using SharePoint designer I would avoid it for SharePoint 2007 development and instead focus on getting a solid solution structure defined and use some tools like WSPBuilder and your be off to a good start. If your doing SharePoint 2010 SharePoint designer has got a lot better and the new support in Visual Studio 2010 for SharePoint is great.
Related
I know there are so many questions and articles on this topic and I have searched hours and hours on the Internet so far, but I still couldn’t find the right answer for my question. I was assigned the task to investigate the development environment for SharePoint web parts by my company. The money is not an issue but it must be the proper way to do it.
Here is my ideal plan: at developer desktop, install VS2005/2008 (it is already installed), VS2005/2008 Extension for SharePoint and WSPBuilder. It is also installed a Virtual Machine and the VM runs windows server 2003/2008. WSS3.0 and SQL Express 2005/2008 will be also installed on VM.
Developer’s desktop is a web parts development environment. Developers use VS to develop the SharePoint web parts and then run the WSPBuilder, it will deploy the web parts into the SharePoint testing environment on VM. So the VM is just a SharePoint testing environment.
It looks like a good idea, however, it doesn’t work. Why? Because VS extension can't be installed on developer’s desktop as it doesn’t have WSS3.0 installed!
I definitely don’t want to install the VS on the VM, because our developer desktop has installed VS and we don’t need to have 2 VS licences for 1 developer.
Any idea what is the best way to set up the development environment for SharePoint web parts?
Thank you in advance.
You won't be able to develop for SharePoint (WSS 3.0) unless your development environment includes an installation of at least WSS. In general, development is done on a Windows Server 2003 Virtual Machine (Visual Studio is installed directly on this machine). However, SharePoint can be installed on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines, so your development machine may be able to host SharePoint itself, but it is far easier to do this on a VM.
My SharePoint development VM has the following installed:
Windows Server 2003 R2
SharePoint 2007 (Including SQL 2005)
Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio Tools for Office
Office Server SDK
Visual Studio Extensions for WSS 1.3
Obviously you can use WSPBuilder instead, but I much prefer VSSWSS 1.3, but that is developer preference.
I believe (should be verified with Microsoft) that the licensing for Visual Studio can be extended to Virtual Machines when used by the same developer (depending on your agreement).
An alternative for you which may or may not work depending on your priorities.
Install Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Foundation to your development server.
Grab a copy of Microsoft.SharePoint.dll from a SharePoint 2007 server.
Use VS2010's tools to develop a web part but manually change the reference to the 2007 dll's (+ also see "Build a SharePoint 2007 Web Part with a Visual Studio 2010 Visual Web Part Project") so you are outputing a 2007 compatible web part.
When you delploy your 2007 web part to your local 2010 server it will just work (as its backwardly compatible)
When you deploy your 2007 web part to your test/qa/production servers it will work too.
Advantages
You're working with latest greatest
version of VS and the sharepoint
tooling so you get one click deploy,
automatic creation of WSP packages
etc. Nothing against WSP Builder etc (they are great) but my moneys on vs2010 sharepoint extensions for the future.
You're ready if/when your
company moves to 2010.
You're developing on a Windows 7 machine, not a 2003/2008 server and or a VM so this has advantages for licensing, speed and ease of use (dual monitor support from VS running on a VM?)
Edit - to deploy web parts to other servers you create a .wsp package and then deploy via STSSADM or another tool (SharePoint solution installer or other admin tools).
I haven't used VSSWSS or WSPBuilder. I've always used STSDEV for SharePoint 2007. And I've always used Windows XP to do it. I don't know if VSSWSS and WSPBuilder act the same, but, as Ryan was saying, I copy whatever SharePoint DLLs I need from a SharePoint 2007 server into a Solution Folder in my Visual Studio solution. I then select Add Reference in my project and browse to the DLL.
In four years, I've never had any problems with this method. The solution packages build just fine and work on any SharePoint server. I lose the option to debug, but I'd rather stay on my machine than go into a VM or Remote Desktop.
I'm a newbie in Sharepoint 2010 and need some help.
I have downloaded two programs från Microsoft Academy for students
*SharePoint Designer 2010 (x86 - English)
*SharePoint Server 2010 (x64) - DVD (English)
Which of these programs do I need I started installing?
I also heard that you need to have a server in order to use Sharepoint. In my case I only have a Dell laptop (XPS M1710) with XP pro.
can I still use Sharepoint with full utilization without using a server?
// Fullmetalboy
SharePoint 2010 Server is 64-bit only, and can only be installed on a Windows Server unless you do a SKU Hack. Even then, I doubt it will want to install on Windows XP. Vista or Windows 7 is going to be required.
The designer is used purely as a simple content editor for an existing SharePoint installation.
Can Sharepoint apps be developed in a Visual Studio 2010 dev box only or does the dev box need to connect to a Sharepoint server? Can the Sharepoint Server be a stand alone machine (no domain controller between the two machines)?
The best practise for SharePoint development is to use a virtual server that contains the SharePoint install itself (and a copy of the portal you're working with), because assuming you are programming directly against the SP API, you will need to be executing your code on the machine that contains the Sharepoint installation itself.
You can program against SharePoint from a non-SharePoint machine through the use of the standard set of SharePoint web services provided, and you can of course create your own services (again sitting on the SP box/VM) to interrogate too. The catch to this approach is that you'll be dealing with return types that are primitive or XML based and you won't have the luxury of SP objects, for example SPUser, SPSite, etc, but for simple query operations at least this is not a bad approach.
IMHO, however, you've far greater flexbility programming against the API itself (Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll) so I'd advise you to get a VM going with all the necessary installs. Yes, it's a pain and time-consuming to set up, but well worth it.
As for Stand-alone options: SharePoint 2007 is not supported on anything non-server in terms of OS, so you'll need something like Server 2008 in order for it to work. SharePoint 2010, however, whilst claiming to only work on Server 2008, can actually work on Windows 7 (Pro and above) with a few hacks. You also have the benefit of 'sandbox' feature deployment in 2010, where you don't in 2007, meaning dev work is more cleanly isolated and less of a risk to a farm as a whole.
Good luck!
You can develop for SharePoint 2010 using VS 2010 using a stand alone setup - this is supported by Microsoft and very much recomended. Infact most of the tools built into VS2010 that will make your life significantly easier will only work with a local copy of SharePoint 2010.
MSDN - Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7...
Yes, if you have Windows 7 or Vista (you need WAS - Windows Activation Services). We have tried it but found that it was better to develop on a Windows 2008 with your own AD.
It will depend on what you are developing, for webparts you will not notice the difference. You will notice the difference when working on the security part og the app.
Sahil Maliks book has a whole chapter on the different options.
you can do sharepoint development by copying certain dlls to your local enviroment but to my understanding this is unsupported and the recommended practice is to use a virtual machine or development on the machine in which the service resides.
I've just tried out TFS 2010 today, along with Project 2010 and VS 2010. Only Later realized that without Sharepoint, TFS is only configured as Basic. This reduces it's functionality as oppose to what I've seen during VS2010 product launch. Sadly I can't find any alternative but to get a trial copy of Sharepoint to see if it serve my purpose. Well, apparently Sharepoint only comes with x64 edition. I'm not formatting any machine to x64 just to give this a try. So, after some reading up, I found that Project Server is actually based on Sharepoint. Now I wonder is whether TFS can be configure to connect to Project Server?
If it's possible, would the setting be much different that Sharepoint's?
And what am I missing from this setup as oppose to Sharepoint's?
Based on Sharepoint != Sharepoint. I think that Project Server is just a subset of Sharepoint functionality. Also, basing Project on Sharepoint allows for some really tight integration into your portal. To answer your question, I don't think you still will get your fully featured TFS without Sharepoint Proper.
FYI - Sharepoint 2007 (or 3.0 or whatever it is) is not x64 only, but will run on x86. TFS 2010 will go full feature on 2007
Sharepoint 2007 Trial
To answer what you are missing:
Reports
Project Portal
TFS Web Access
That's about it. You still get 90% of the features with your current deployment without SharePoint. Tommy is right about MOSS 2007, it comes in 32-bit and will give you all features. Project Server runs on top of SharePoint as a shared service provider. Traditionally MS releases a power toy to integrate TFS with Project Server. They said they would go over this at TechEd, which just happened about a week ago.
Also, I suspect the integration with Project Server 2010 will be better, but then you will have to run SharePoint 2010 :(
In my opinion, TFS has enough to run most projects by itself and you can use the client version of MS Project for critical path anaylsis, etc.
Use Windows Sharepoint Services for Windows 2003 & Windows 2008:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb400747.aspx
For Windows Server 2008 sp2 and Windows Server R2, use SharePoint Foundation 2010:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=49c79a8a-4612-4e7d-a0b4-3bb429b46595&displaylang=en
Both are free.
I'm not formatting any machine to x64
just to give this a try.
Why not use VMWare Server, Hyper-V, Virtual Box or some other virtualization software to run the pre-made demo/trial/lab VHD's - no formatting, no installation, no setup, more hair.
Link
I haven't touched sharepoint in years. If I want to setup a development environment to get up to speed, what options do I have? I don't have an MSDN license, is there anyway I can get up and running for free? (for development only)
You need a Windows 2003 Server (or 2008 Server, but I have no experience with that), no way around that. You can then of course use Visual C# 2005 Express and the SHarepoint Services 3.0 if that's your target.
If you want to do development on Sharepoint 2007, you have to buy a Sharepoint 2007 license, which has a pretty hefty fee attached to it.
As a SQL, SQL 2005 Express works fine for development.
There is a good Article how to set up Sharepoint on a Single Server:
http://blogs.msdn.com/martinkearn/archive/2007/03/28/how-to-install-sharepoint-server-2007-on-a-single-machine.aspx
You CAN use a Trial Version of Windows 2003 and Sharepoint 2007 though if it's only needed for a limited time (i believe the Trials run 180 days).
There is no way you can have a MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 development for free but a Microsoft Action Pact is so cheap to get. :)
There is a nice blog to read to get the requirements and the steps to get a full MOSS 2007 image up and running here : How to Create a MOSS 2007 VPC Image: The Whole 9 Yards.
The action pack is fantastic value, you can use the Windows Server from that, as well as SharePoint Enterprise / Standard.
If you're just (re-)starting out in SharePoint development, there's a lot of value in just using WSS 3.0 and not (yet) using MOSS 2007. The basic vocabulary is going to be exactly the same at the development level, and you can accomplish a huge amount without ever feeling like you need MOSS to learn.
You could always download the Sharepoint trial VM here and then install the express version of visual studio.
You can download an Office SharePoint Server VHD from Microsoft. This allows you to run a virtual Windows Server & SharePoint Server on your personal machine using Virtual Server.
I recently went through this process and wrote a blog article describing how to setup a virtual Office SharePoint Server.