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I am not sure how much call there is for a post like this, but I was thinking recently that with the free development tools available now from Microsoft, it might be possible to build a SharePoint development environment for free.  Lo and behold, not only is it possible, it is downright simple to do.

First things first – there are a few caveats.  They are:

• What I am about to describe is in no way supported by Microsoft
• You will be confined to the WSS object model…although I supposed you could also install MOSS as well for your own use in a dev environment without anyone giving you any flak
• You will not have access to the Visual Studio Templates / Extensions (more on this one later)

OK – who’s ready to build something cool for free?  I know I am!

What you need:

1. The latest Windows SharePoint Services installation bits.  It’s a good idea if you are installing SharePoint to go with the latest and greatest.  There is now a streamlined installation for WSS that includes SP1 and SP2.  Get it here:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EF93E453-75F1-45DF-8C6F-4565E8549C2A&displaylang=en
2. SQL Server Express.  This is optional, but highly encouraged.  The 2005 version or the 2008 version will work.  You can get the 2005 version here:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=220549b5-0b07-4448-8848-dcc397514b41&displaylang=en.  You can get the 2008 version at the new Microsoft Express site, which is here:  http://www.microsoft.com/express.
3. SharePoint Designer.  This is the approved way to mess with SharePoint pages, and it is now a free product from Microsoft.  Find it here:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/FX100487631033.aspx.
4. Visual Studio Express.  Get the VS Express products that you prefer.  There are 3 language-specific products, for C#, Visual Basic and C++.  Get one, get all 3…it don’t matter to me one little bit…but you should probably make sure you get at least one, as it will be your preferred product for creating class libraries for use with SharePoint.  I would also highly recommend that you download Visual Web Developer Express as well.  This is the product you can use to create web-only stuff, like ASP.NET applications, web services, and server controls.  You can get all the Visual Studio Express products at the same place you got SQL Server 2008 Express:  http://www.microsoft.com/express.
5. WSSonVista.  This is mandatory if you are not doing this on a server-class operating system (Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008).  Our good friends over at Bamboo Solutions have found a way to allow an install of WSS (MOSS, too) on Vista.  If you do not download their tool, the WSS/MOSS installer will bomb out and let you know that it can only install on server operating systems.  You can find out more about WSSonVista here:  http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/bambooteamblog/archive/2008/05/21/how-to-install-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-sp1-on-vista-x64-x86.aspx

OK.  Now that you have everything you need, it’s time to start installing stuff.  I don’t care when you install the Visual Studio Express products and SharePoint Designer.  You can do it in the beginning or at the end.  I will leave that up to you.  But, the other 3 things should be installed in the order prescribed by the Bamboo Solutions blog post referenced in #4 above.  Install SQL Server Express first, then WSSOnVista, then SharePoint.

There are detailed instructions, with screenshots, in the Bamboo Solutions blog post.  Just follow those instructions perfectly, and you will have a perfect installation of WSS/MOSS on Vista.

Assuming that you have figured out how to install some combination of Visual C# 2008 Express, Visual Basic 2008 Express, Visual C++ 2008 Express and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express…you are now able to create Visual Studio projects, reference the SharePoint DLL(s) resident on your machine, and code away.

As promised, here is a small nit that I will pick with Microsoft regarding the Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint (VSeWSS).  It used to be possible to install a trial version of Visual Studio 2005 Professional, then install VSeWSS for Visual Studio 2005, and then merely copy the SharePoint project templates to the Templates folder referenced by Visual C# 2005 Express.  This will not work with the 2008 versions of these products.  When you try to use the Visual Studio 2008 templates to create a project in Visual C# 2008 Express, you will get an error message stating that “The project type is not supported by this installation.”  In my opinion, this is in direct contrast to the way Microsoft has been proceeding over the past several years with regard to making some pretty robust tools available to independent developers that want to familiarize themselves with the Microsoft development suite without spending a ton of money.

If and when I find a workaround for this, I will try to return to this post and incorporate the fix.

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