Requirements for Developing SharePoint Solutions
You must install the following prerequisites on the system before you can use the SharePoint solution development tools included in Visual Studio 2010:
Visual Studio 2010 Professional or an edition of Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).
- Either the Visual C# or Visual Basic feature, or both, when installing Visual Studio.
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 installed on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
or
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 installed on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
Note
While only server operating systems are officially supported by SharePoint, two client operating systems are allowed: Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP1. For more information, see SharePoint Server 2010 Developer Workstation Installation Guide.
Business Data Connectivity (BDC) Model project types require that Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 be installed on the system.
To develop SharePoint solutions in Visual Studio 2010, you must install SharePoint on the same machine as Visual Studio 2010. Also, the SharePoint developer tools only support a SharePoint standalone configuration; they do not support a farm configuration.
Note
SharePoint projects in Visual Studio 2010 support only .NET Framework version 3.5. If you select .NET Framework version 4 for a new SharePoint project, it will still target .NET Framework version 3.5.
For more information about how to install Visual Studio, see Installing Visual Studio.
SharePoint 2007 Project Requirements
You must install the following prerequisites on the system before you can work with SharePoint 2007 projects in Visual Studio 2010:
Visual Studio 2010 Professional or an edition of Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).
- Either the Visual C# or Visual Basic feature, or both, when installing Visual Studio.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 installed on 32-bit Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008.
or
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 installed on 32-bit Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008.
If the operating system does not support SharePoint Server, or SharePoint Server is not installed, the Visual Studio Setup program will install the SharePoint workflow project templates, but you will not be able to use them.
Because Visual Studio 2010 supports only 32-bit versions of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, they cannot be installed on the same server as Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.
Note
Because Visual Studio 2008 provided project templates only for sequential and state machine workflow projects, only those workflow project templates are available when creating SharePoint 2007 projects in Visual Studio 2010. For the same reason, only workflow projects can be upgraded from Visual Studio 2008. Projects created with the VSeWSS tools must be upgraded using a different process. For more information, see Transitioning from Visual Studio 2008 SharePoint or VSeWSS Projects to Visual Studio 2010.
Vista and Windows 7 User Account Control (UAC)
Windows Vista and Windows 7 incorporate a security feature known as User Account Control, or UAC. To develop SharePoint solutions in Visual Studio on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems, UAC requires that you run Visual Studio as a system administrator. Right-click the Visual Studio shortcut on the desktop and then click Run as administrator.
To configure the desktop shortcut to always run as administrator, right-click the shortcut, click Properties, click the Advanced button, and then select Run as administrator.
For more information, see Understanding and Configuring User Account Control in Windows Vista. and Windows 7 User Account Control.
SharePoint Permissions Considerations
To develop SharePoint solutions, you must have sufficient permissions to run and debug SharePoint solutions. Before you can test a SharePoint solution, take the following steps to ensure that you have the necessary permissions:
Add your user account as an Administrator on the system.
Add your user account as a Farm Administrator for the SharePoint server.
In SharePoint Central Administration, click the Manage the farm administrators group link.
On the Farm Administrators page, click the New button on the menu.
Add your user account to the to the WSS_ADMIN_WPG group.