Conventions and Features in This Book

This book presents information using conventions designed to make the information readable and easy to follow.

• The book has downloadable samples available for C# programmers. Be aware that the text of the chapters often uses only code excerpts, not full code samples. Thus, to have the best experience with the samples, I highly recommended that you start from the downloadable, full-code sample files, rather than copying code excerpts from the book text.

• Boxed elements with labels such as “Note” provide additional information or alternative methods for completing a step successfully.

• Variables, types, keywords and code syntax in general (apart from code blocks) appear in italic.

• A vertical line between two or more menu items (for example. File | Open), means that you should select the first menu or menu item, then the next, and so on.

P2.1. System Requirements

You will need the following hardware and software to run the code samples in this book:

• Operating system: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2, or Windows Server 2008 R2

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional Edition or higher

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition, 64-bit or higher (2008 or R2 release), with SQL Server Management Studio 2008 Express or higher (included with Visual Studio, Express Editions require separate download)

• A computer that has a 64-bit four cores processor

• At least 4 GB (64-bit) of RAM (6 GB are suggested if running multiple services on the same server)

• An additional 2 GB of RAM if running in a virtual machine

• 80 GB of available hard disk space

• 5400 RPM hard disk drive

• DVD-ROM drive (if installing Visual Studio from DVD)

• Internet connection to download software or chapter examples

Depending on your Windows configuration, you might require Local Administrator rights to install or configure Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2008 products.

Before executing the code samples available with the book, you need to install a SharePoint 2010 farm, creating a web application and a default Site Collection. Most of the code samples target either Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. However, there are topics that are suitable only for the Server edition of the product. In such cases, the book text explicitly alerts you to the restriction.

P2.1.1. Code Samples

Most of the chapters in this book include exercises that let you interactively try out new material learned in the main text. All sample projects are available for download from the book’s page on the website for Microsoft’s publishing partner, O’Reilly Media:

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780735639034/

Click the Examples link on that page. When a list of files appears, locate and download the SP2010-Developer-Reference.zip file.

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Note:

In addition to the code samples, you should have Visual Studio 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, and SharePoint 2010 installed on your computer. The instructions below use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2008 to set up the sample database used with the practice examples. If available, install the latest service packs for each product.

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P2.1.2. Installing the Code Samples

Follow these steps to install the code samples on your computer so that you can use them with the exercises in this book.

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Note:

If the license agreement doesn’t appear, you can access it from the same webpage from which you downloaded the SP2010-Developer-Reference.ZIP file.

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P2.1.3. Using the Code Samples

The SP2010-Developer-Reference.zip file contains another ZIP file for every chapter that has related code samples. You should unzip each chapter file on the root of your hard disk or under a folder with a short name, to avoid having file paths that are too long. In fact, you could experience issues with the packaging and deployment tools of Visual Studio 2010 if your file paths are longer than 255 characters.

Code samples of Chapter 25, include a sample database of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. You should restore that database from the file SampleCRM.bak available in the Ch-25-BCS.zip file included in the SP2010-Developer-Reference.zip file.

For further details and samples about SharePoint 2010 development you can browse to the author’s site (http://www.sharepoint-reference.com/), where you will find a blog dedicated to SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Office 365.