Setting up a SharePoint 2007 Development Virtual PC

Setting up a SharePoint 2007 VPC is not a next next finish installation. Below is an installation sequence that I have followed in order to setup a development VPC that has all the tools in need to create WorkFlows. Basically this VPC is going to have the Tools that I need to develop in SharePoint 2007.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 
• Windows Server 2003 (I used R2, you could try 2008 if you’re feeling lucky)
• Media for SharePoint 2007 (I used my MSDN media)
• Media for SQL Server 2005 (You can use SQL Express but I have chosen to install with Developer Edition) 
• Media for Visual Studio 2005 (At the time of writing this post, 2008 did not have all the tools I needed to create WF)

Alright, let’s get started:

1. Install Windows Server on your VPC and get is all patched up. You should be able to get away with one 20GB VHD
2. Install VPC Add-in tools 
3. Install IIS and make sure you include the SMTP option.
4. Promote your VPC to be a Domain Controller of a new domain.
5. Install SQL Server
6. Next Install MOSS 2007 (I have installed Enterprise Edition as I do BDC development)
7. Configure MOSS 2007. This includes Search, SSP, Single Sign On etc. (You will need to create some domain accounts for different parts of the configuration)
8. Setup a SharePoint Web Application and Add a Site Collection. Now you should have a working version of SharePoint. Make sure you can browse to the new site collection you just created. It takes a while the first time to load.Lets add the development tools……
9. Install Office 2007 (Use a version that has InfoPath – or install that seperately. InfoPath 2007 works great with SharePoint) 
10. Install Visual Studio 2005 (Team Edition if you use Team Server)
11. Install Windows SharePoint Services Developer Resources 1.2 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en)
12. Install the Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK Version 1.2 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=05E0DD12-8394-402B-8936-A07FE8AFAFFD&displaylang=en)
13. Install Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services version 1.1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3E1DCCCD-1CCA-433A-BB4D-97B96BF7AB63&displaylang=en)
14. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 – Update to Support Web Application Projects (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8B05EE00-9554-4733-8725-3CA89DD9BFCA&displaylang=en)
15. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows Workflow Foundations (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=5d61409e-1fa3-48cf-8023-e8f38e709ba6&displayLang=en)
16. Open the Visual Studio Command Prompt and execute the following commands:
    1. devenv /setup
    2. regsvr32.exe “%vs80comntools%\..\IDE\projectaggregator.dll”
    3. devenv /resetskippkgs (Say Yes to the prompt)

That should be all that you need to get started.

Oh and one more thing, this tool (SharePoint Spy) to be very helpful for displaying events that are happening inside SharePoint. Install that as well (http://www.echotechnology.com/products/spy/Pages/default.aspx)