In Part 1 of the series we looked at the requirements for building a SharePoint Development Machines. In this article we will look at the actual installation of the main parts of the system to ensure that we have a working virtual machine that will not cause the network division headaches or destroy your well implemented home network. This article assumes you have a working knowledge of installing software, including Windows Server 2008 and SharePoint 2007.
I am not going to cover detail on how to create a virtual machine since your choice of Virtual Machine host will determine how the machine is created. If you are planning to install the 64 bit version then please take note of the requirements for running 64Bit guests that can be found here. Effectively you will use your VM Hosts of choice and create a new virtual machine with the following settings:
| Setting |
Value |
| Operating System |
Windows Server 2008 (If Available) |
| Memory |
1024MB (Min) |
| Hard Disk Space |
80GB (Min) (Recommended: Fixed Size) |
| Processors |
1 (Min) |
| Video Memory |
16MB (Min) |
| Network |
Shared (Dependant on Requirements) |
Once the virtual machine has been created it is time to install the operating system as well as the required components for running SharePoint 2007.
Software Installation
Do a normal installation of Windows Server 2008. At this point I am going to point out that I do NOT create an Active Directory domain for the Development Environment, because it can cause major headaches for an IT department. If you are planning on create an AD VM I recommended you switch to Host Only networking to avoid issues on your corporate network. However the VM has been joined to the domain to allow access to network resources.
Once Windows Server 2008 has been installed, and all the required settings has been provided, including passwords etc, the following needs to be prepared for the SharePoint 2007 installation:
- Create a new user called: SharePoint. Add the user to the Local Administrator group.
- Add 3 new local groups for managing users: SharePoint Visitors, SharePoint Members and SharePoint Owners
- Add the SharePoint user and your local account to the SharePoint Owners Group.
- Install IIS 7.0 (Install all modules for safety sake, especially the IIS 6 metabase items)
Once Windows has been installed and configured follow the following sequence to install the rest of the software:
- SQL Server 2008
- Once installed at the SharePoint local user to the Login list and add him to the dbcreate and securityadmin groups.
- SharePoint 2007
- Do a Complete Installation
- Create the Administration Database on the local SQL Server 2008 using the SharePoint local user
- Once created follow all the required steps in setting up your server farm, using the SharePoint user as your account.
- You do not need to configure SSO for the BDC. You can’t configure SSO on a standalone server.\
- Microsoft Office 2007
- SharePoint Designer 2007
- Visual Studio 2008
- Visual Studio 2008 SP1
- Windows SharePoint Services SDK
- SharePoint Server SDK
- VseWSS
All other software can be loaded after the above has been loaded.
The installation process is extremely straight forward, but it is a go get a cup of coffee type process. The overall building of a VM from scratch takes around 3 – 4 hours depending on your harder, usage may vary.
This is the conclusion of the SharePoint Development Environment Series.
