Random Thunks

I’ll start off by saying that it narks me that MS have forced a good chunk of MOSS development to happen on a server. This to me is nuts; Why they haven’t released a dev copy of MOSS is beyond me. After all we have SQL Server Development edition (which is Enterprise in all but license) and that can run on a workstation running 2000, XP or Vista. So why not MOSS?

I wouldn’t mind so much if it were easy to debug etc. remotely but it’s not. So, the net result of this is that we’re all forced to have a copy of Windows 2003 + SQL Server + MOSS + Visual Studio 2005. Unless you’re lucky to have an MSDN subscription (which is a nice expense in it’s own right) such a setup can set one back mucho dollar, pounds sterling, euros, yen etc.

However, it is what it is. So, that said I thought it would be handy (having built up my umpteenth development server environment) to list out what is needed.

MOSS Development Recipe (serves 1-2, 0 calories, 0 grams fat)

• 1 Virtual PC 2004 SP1 (recommended to avoid extra hardware costs)
• 1 Windows 2003 R2 Server
• 1 SQL Server 2005 (optional but recommended) + Service Pack 1 (or Service Pack 2 in or after March ’07)
• 1 MOSS (Enterprise Edition recommended)
• 1 Visual Studio 2005 (minimum recommended = Professional Edition) + Service Pack 1
• 1 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Software Development Kit (SDK)
• 1 SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit and Enterprise Content Management Starter Kit
• 1 Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)
• 1 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions (November 2006 CTP)

Instructions

• Pre-heat your environment by creating a virtual PC image on your workstation.
• Take the windows server installation media and install slowly. Keep installing until all prompts have been removed and server is stood up.
• Install & configure Windows Update and run through the update process until server is protected.
• Ensure IIS 7 is installed and configured.
• Install SQL Server and associated Service Pack. Stir slowly and carefully as this process is apt to take 30 to 45 minutes. Caution: make sure you install using a Case Insensitive collation (US users may be comfortable for example with SQL_Latin1_General_CP1250_CI_AS).
• Install MOSS and let stew for 20 minutes. Caution: Unless your development server is joined to a domain it is advised you configure MOSS to use NTLM authentication wherever possible and not Kerberos.
• Once installed slowly go thru the configuration process. Warning: always ensure that all user names are entered using the Domain\LoginId Nomenclature – failure to observe will result in a lumpy none functional service.
• Install Visual Studio 2005. I’d suggest a somewhat minimal environment here since your development on the server should be relegated to MOSS projects only. A nice minimal configuration would be (for VS Professional):

• Install Visual Studio Service Pack 1. Turn heat down to low and let simmer for anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours until Service Pack 1 fully integrated with Visual Studio. Warning: this process can not be sped up in any way – patience is the key here.

• Install the SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK.
• Install the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK & ECM Starter Kit.
• Install the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .Net 3.0.
• Install the November CTP of the SharePoint tools Visual Studio Extensions.

You should now have an development environment ready for you to install and debug your various MOSS features.

My personal preference here is to use the server as an installation and test machine only. I like to have my main project developed on my laptop (with all the extra bells and whistles that environment has (e.g. CodeRush or Visual Assist X) plus the usual necessary paraphernalia such as Lutz’s Reflector, Stramit CAML Viewer, Office 2007 etc. When I come to installation and debugging then I like to run a process that pushes all the code onto the server, then switch to that for the next stage.