SharePoint Pitfalls: Creating a Visual Studio Project Without SharePoint Locally Installed

This is the first on a (huge) collection of posts on SharePoint pitfalls. Hope you enjoy, and, please, do send me your feedback!

If you do not have SharePoint locally installed, Visual Studio will not let you create a SharePoint project:

Fortunately, it is easy to go around this in two simple steps:

1. Registry

   In the Registry, add the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\15.0\SharePoint

   In it, add two string values: Location=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\ and SharePoint=Installed

2. Global Assembly Cache

   Copy the following assemblies from a machine where SharePoint is installed (C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\GAC_32) into your development machine and add them to the GAC (gacutil):

   • Microsoft.SharePoint.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Publishing.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerRuntime.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.dll
   • Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.dll

   Of course, you may need others as well.

Enjoy!