For some time we’ve been looking for the best development environment for SharePoint 2010. Different than other earlier SharePoint versions, SP2010 can be installed on Windows 7 or Windows Visto for development purposes. Other alternative for development is using virtual machines. I think virtual machine option has still more advantages. You can move virtual machines from one computer to another. Or you can install more than one VMs in one computer. Another advantage (and according to me the most important) is taking snapshots. So you don’t have to be worried about digging in SP features. Windows 7 installation also has some disadvantages. Only installation option of SP2010 on Windows 7 is standalone installation. You can not use fully installed SQL Server. You have to use SQL Server Express. You can not replicate the real deployment server environment. So I still prefer using VMs for SP development.
Unfortunately in order to use VMs for SP2010 you must have a solid hardware. Microsoft recommends 4GB of RAM to install and run SharePoint Server. So it’s better to have a computer which has at least 8GB of RAM. Alo it’s better to have a solid CPU and fast hard drive (preferably SSD).
Next step is deciding on virtualization software such as VMWare, Virtual Box (free :)) and HyperV. You can find and compare specifications of these softwares.
Building VM
- Install VM operation system, Windows Server 2008 r2.
- Set computer name
- Make VM a Domain Controller
- Configure Windows
- Enable Remote Desktop
- Create users (farm admin, service application, application pool)
- Windows updates
- Install SQL Server 2008 R2
- Install SharePoint 2010 (preferably Enterprise edition)
- Install Office Web Apps
- Configuration Wizard
- Install SharePoint Designer
- Install Visual Studio 2010
Hope this helps…
4 thoughts on “Build SharePoint 2010 Development Environment”
Here is the thing… Making VM the domain controller must be dangerous. Why? If your VM is going to be part of the network the domain controller, then it probably tries to bypass the real one in the network. So you must ensure that your VM is isolated from the network(i.e. NAT settings issue) .
On the other hand by setting the VM as a domain controller you also create an AD where the only user in AD is the administrator of OS. In this case, all of your services etc. have to use the same account.
Very good point. Thanks for sharing this information. Actually setting VM as domain controller is tricky also.
Very good point. Thanks for sharing this information. Actually setting VM as domain controller is tricky also.
I am very interested in your article. It is very useful and helpful for me to develop the sharepoint application. Thanks for share this valuable post.