So I need a development environment. There are lots of articles on how to do this but there are also a lot of gotchas. This is my step by step guide (more for me so I can do it again).

Do your research!

I have looked at many, many articles on how to install SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7, starting with the MSDN articles stemming from Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. This article provides several hardware options. I have a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 machine with 6GB of RAM. Unlike most articles, I will not be using SQL 2008, instead I will use SQL 2012 RC0.

Backup

Step 1 is always to backup your machine if it has anything that you rely on. In my case this is my work laptop and I can’t afford to be without it. If you are using a VM then it is still worth making sure that you can recreate a machine with all updates installd and all pre-requisites installed so that you can spend minimal time installing if you need to repeat the process.

SQL 2012 RC0

Source Files

I have downloaded the x64 exe, CORE box and LANG box files. After executing the exe file a new folder with the installation media has been unpacked. After clicking on setup.exe a familiar ‘SQL Server Installation Centre’ is displayed. Selecting ‘Installation’ on the left produces a list on the right containing ‘New stand-alone installation’

Choosing this option causes a series of checks to be carried out.

Setup Support Rules

Click Next

Product Key

Not many choices of versions to choose from at this point in time

Accept the licence terms

Setup Supprt Rules

Setup Role

Select ‘SQL Feature Installation’ – Need to understand these aspects

Feature Selection

I am selecting all features except the following:

• Replication
• Native Reporting Services
• Distributed Replay Controller
• Distributed Replay Client

Installation Rules

More checks …

Instance Configuration

Going for a default instance

Disk Space Requirements

Server Configuration

Service Accounts

Leaving as default.

Collation

Changed collation to SharePoint default

Database Engine Configuration

Server Configuration

I have enabled mixed mode and added myself as an administrator

Data Directories

I like to know where all files are going to live – if I have to change their location in the future this makes life much easier

FILESTREAM

This is a DEV environment so I am enabling full access.

Analysis Services Configuration

Server Configuration

Selecting multidimensional and adding myself as an administrator

Data Directories

Again, good to know where they are incase I need to move them

Reporting Services Configuration

Leave as install only – SharePoint will handle the rest

Error Reporting

Installation Configuration Rules

Ready To Install

I always grab the bootstrap file for future installations with the same configuration, or a rebuild

After a while the installation is complete

To install SharePoint see part 2