So what's on your SharePoint development machine?

Occasionally I get a comment from someone who hit an old page on my blog called What's on My PC... an oldie that others were doing at the time. In the last few weeks I've been hit by a higher than normal amount of these in part due to my Setting up your SharePoint development environment post at the end of August. After migrating my virtualization rig to Hyper-V last week, I build out a brand new clean SharePoint development machine. So I figured I'd document what's on my primary SharePoint development virtual machine... your mileage may vary but the following is what I roll with on my virtual machines:

Windows, Database, Office SharePoint Server & Office Clients

First off I need to install all the basic stuff I'll need to run SharePoint & do development:

Windows Server 2008 (going with the x64 flavor so I can run a glorious 4GB in my VM all the time... ah... the joys of a monster box)
SQL Server 2008
MOSS 2007 +SP1 +Infrastructure Updates
Office 2007 Clients (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook) +SP1
Office SharePoint Designer 2007 +SP1
Visual Studio 2008 +SP1

All along the way, create snapshots so you can jump around if necessary:

Development, debugging & General Tools / Utilities

I like to add a bunch of utilities to my development machine, most free but a few aren't so free (in no particular order):

Windows PowerShell
Notepad++
DevExpress' CodeRush & Refactor! Pro (not free)

TortoiseSVN - Subversion source control client Windows Explorer shell add in

DeleteSVN.reg - little menu hack that removes all the Subversion files from a directory tree... great for sending a project to a client.
VisualSVN - adds Subversion support for (not free)

WinMerge
Red Gate's Reflector
Spence's Application Pool Manager
Spence's add WSP registry hack
SharePoint Manager 2007
Fiddler
TestDriven.net
MbUnit
Utility WSP's

LogViewer.wsp - easy to read SharePoint log files
SharePointWarmupJob.wsp - I like mine more than the warmup scripts
SharePointDebugger.wsp - Feature that turns off custom ASP.NET errors

CAML IntelliSense

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,development environment,virtual machine,utilities

posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 5:15 PM

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# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/7/2008 6:01 PM Alexander Brütt

I use this tool to extract content type definitions from SharePoint:
http://sharepoint-dms.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=17

The page is from Germany but like reading a newspaper, just look at the pictures.

Cheers,
Alexander

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/7/2008 9:25 PM Matthew Chestnut

I recommend this free Visual Studio Subversion client:

AnkhSVN is a Subversion SourceControl Provider for Visual Studio -- http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/

The new 2.0 client is far superior to the previous 1.0 product.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/7/2008 10:45 PM Patrick Yong

What email server do you use with Windows Server 2008? I am still running SharePoint on Win2003 because the lack of email server in win2k8

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/7/2008 10:55 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Patrick-
I don't use one... I find I rarely ever need it in my projects believe it or not. When I do need it, I usually revert back to a Win2k3 VM I've got, but so far I haven't needed it since Win2k8 came out.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/8/2008 12:58 AM YESChandana

Yo... This is my list..

http://www.yeschandana.com/post/2008/09/My-SharePoint-Development-Environment.aspx

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/8/2008 2:23 AM Stefan

You could replace your DeleteSVN.reg file with this here:
http://tortoisesvn.net/node/343
which is part of TortoiseSVN.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/8/2008 4:12 AM MB

I think the best thing I have on my dev machine is something I did by accident and only after I did it was it so head-slappingly obvious....

I dropped a shortcut to the 12 hive on my taskbar and added a few folder shortcuts to the root of that folder so now I can browse to them without having to go through windows explorer.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/8/2008 9:12 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Stefan-
The Export capability is great... as long as you're connected to your repository. But when you are't, you need another way to clean out everything. Or when you are given a solution that's filled with the Subversion stuff.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/8/2008 11:05 AM Keith Dahlby

To export without a connection to the repository, you can right-click+drag and pick "SVN Export all to here". An extra step compared to the REG hack, but OOB.

Other tools:
http://hristopavlov.wordpress.com/sptraceview/
http://live.sysinternals.com/Dbgview.exe

P.S. ~ Your blog search still doesn't work in Firefox. ;)

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/9/2008 2:49 PM Mark Conger

Out of curiosity, what are you using to host the subversion repository. VisualSVNs free server or something else living on your big VM machine?

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/9/2008 2:56 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Mark-
VisualSVN... I've got it installed on a VM on my monster machine. Specifically, it's installed on my dedicated dev VM where I have things like CC.NET, MSBuild, VS2008 and other dev utilties installed.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/12/2008 8:59 PM Eli Van Eenwyk

Hi Andrew,

In your x64 SharePoint development environment, did you install the VS 2008 Tools for Extension (1.2) for SharePoint? I read that it isn't supported on x64 OS.

Just wondering what your thoughts where on this?

Thanks,
Eli

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/13/2008 12:28 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Eli-
Personally I don't use the VSeWSS so I don't install them. The latest release works with VS2008, but none of the releases work with x64.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/20/2008 10:58 AM Mark Conger

Thanks for the reply Andrew. That is about what I thought. I have a similar environment setup for my "home" development though my VM Host is overdue for an upgrade and I'm seriously debating the free ESXi vs Win2K8.

As a side question, the above works great for when I'm at home. I'm finding that I'm traveling more and more and away form this environment and forced to look at a similar idea living on my laptop. I know you were blogging while back about your MacBook Pro and Win2K8 for a similar solution. Is this still working out for you? Also you mentioned in one of those old posts that you don't setup AD for your development environs. Do you find a lack of a AD environment a issue while working remotely?

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/20/2008 11:02 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Mark-
When remote, I usually run my VM's in VMWare Workstation v6.5 running in Vista x64. I do have a Win2k8 install with HyperV installed just in case though for some VMs or running native. As for AD, I don't touch it in ANY of my installs and find no limitations... same is true for email (I don't setup email on my SharePoint dev VMs).

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 10/20/2008 11:26 AM Mark Conger

Thanks again, Andrew. Thats similar to my situation, though I'm restricted to x86 due to the age of my work laptop. I've tried running AD in my VMs but its proved to be more trouble than its really worth for little benefit that I can't achieve through other means. Email I've been able to get arround fine with the occasional SMTP server but certainly haven't needed a full Exchange infrastructure.

Thanks again for the quick reply!

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 11/26/2008 9:08 AM MOSSBUDDY

This is helpful AC, thanks again.
Can you please let me know that as VSeWSS is not available for 64bit, then if we use the 32bit for development and have a integration farm where we have Visual Studio 64bit, can we use the same project developed using the VSeWSS (32 bit & VS 2008) on a 64bit VS 2008 (without VSeWSS).

I am asking this as we might have to debug the stuff in the integration/dev environment.
Thanks for your comments.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 11/26/2008 6:58 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

MOSSBUDDY-
The same code can be used, but testing is critical because the systems are different.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 12/16/2008 1:00 PM Gopher194

Hi Andrew,

On your MSDN webcasts (like this one http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc441431.aspx), you obviously was using an explorer console enhancer. Which one was it? Do u still use it?

Thanks.

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 12/17/2008 9:11 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Gopher194-
No idea what you're talking about... what do you mean Explorer console enhancer?

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 5/12/2009 12:10 PM Bob German

So Andrew - I know historically you don't use VSeWSS but I noticed your name on Kirk Evans' blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/kaevans/archive/2009/02/02/getting-started-with-visual-studio-extensions-for-windows-sharepoint-services-1-3-vsewss.aspx) with reference to the latest version. And the issue you noted above (lack of x64 support) has been addressed.

So I'm curious, did you give in and start using them? How about the other Critical Path gurus?

FWIW I finally gave in and most of the time am glad I did :-)

# re: So what's on your SharePoint development machine? 5/15/2009 9:41 AM AC [MVP MOSS}

Bob-
I'm still not a fan of VSeWSS. x64 was never really my problem. Plenty of reasons why... one of the biggest is that what I build is not always what gets deployed (guids aren't matched up, too much magic happens after I hit deploy, not everything is possible with them like workflow, to strict in how projects are structured, etc). It isn't that they are bad, it's that they simply don't work for the way I like to work.

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