SharePoint VM – Just Do It

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/SoYouKnow/archive/2009/03/26/sharepoint-vm-ndash-sounds-kinda-like-an-std.aspx

There’s a woot-off going on today (http://www.woot.com) So, I’m feeling the need to be clever in my post and maybe do it as lyrics to a song?  Can I be that annoying?  By the way, if you don’t know what Woot is, please leave now.   🙂

So, stop.. Collaborate and listen… 

Just kidding, would not force you to endure Vanilla Ice again.

Where was I?  Oh yes, SharePoint VM’s.  If you are anything like me (and God help you if you are), the first time you heard about development in SharePoint you thought it was some kind of cruel joke.  I have to develop on a freaking server or go through the effort of building a VM?  When I first talked to our Infrastructure group about this limitation they laughed in my face and thought I was kidding… it’s not funny.  not even a little. 

There’s some rumor floating around that you can install something from Bamboo Solutions that will allow you to install SharePoint on your Vista machine, but I’m not about to touch that with a 100 mile pole.  I have enough problems with environment conflicts as it is without throwing in an entirely different OS.

But I digress, this is not meant to be a rant, it’s meant to help you get your VM’s up and going so let’s get started:

Pick Your Poison – VMware or VPC

Both can be downloaded for free, but I have found that VMware seems to have better performance and make better use of your system resources.

As Lazy as I am?  Download a VHD

You can download a couple of VHD’s from Microsoft to quickly get started writing code, these are time bombed however so your time is limited!

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 Developer Evaluation VPC Image (doesn’t come with MOSS, but you can install the MOSS Trial on it)

Don’t Be a Pansy!! Build Your Own VM!

The software you need to create a VM (in order of installation) is:

  • Windows Server 2003
  • SQL Server 2005
  • MOSS 2007
  • Office 2007 Professional (For Infopath)
  • SharePoint Designer
  • Visual Studio 2008 & Source Safe
  • SDK’s etc..

Here is a pretty thorough blog on building your own VM:

Finally, before you get started, I recently found out from my good Twitter buddy Todd Klindt (okay, I don’t really know him, but he humbles himself to help us little guys sometimes… thanks Todd!) where he makes it fairly obvious you should NOT do a basic SharePoint install.  Great post Todd:

Ok, now I have to get back to work (and you probably should too).  Hope there was something useful here.  If not, I will refund your admission fee.

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