For those about to rock, we salute you! For those about to get into SharePoint development, I solute you too! With a bit of mixed feelings, but still… salute!

SharePoint requires Windows Server to run but most developers do not use Windows Server on their dev machines. You can always mess with virtual machines but I am not a big fan of that either.

Then I found out that (for dev purposes only!) you can manually install SharePoint 2010 on a Windows 7 machine (or even Vista). Luckily there is a free 180 day trial which should be plenty of time to get your feet wet. Here is what you need to do:

Download SharePoint 2010 Foundation:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5970

Download SharePoint Trial:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee388573.aspx

Now follow this instruction:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(v=office.14).aspx

My advice is to follow the instruction as closely as possible and do not skip the steps that are “optional” (because they are not!). Also after installing and before running the setup wizard run Windows update several times + several restarts to get all available updates installed.

The road is certainly rocky but google bing is your friend and you’ll get there… took me about 2 hours to setup… And when you get the “Unable to create configuration database” error, install the MSChart control… Duh!?!

And at last, optionally download and install the SharePoint 2010 Designer which is free:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=16573 (32-bit)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24309 (64-bit)

Now off to Pluralsight to watch SharePoint videos… 57 courses at 4-6h average equals to a lot…