Sharepoint development with Visual Studio Express?

Question

After spending the past few weeks getting to know WSS 3.0, I finally want to get around the development of Sharepoint. I have Visual Studio Express installed on my Sharepoint server, but when I try to install "WSS 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio Extensions" from Microsoft, it tells me that I do not have Visual Studio installed.

A quick check of the prerequisites on the download site tells me that this extension only applies to Standard, Professional, or Team editions.

So there are actually two questions:

1 - Do I need a Visual Studio WSS extension for Sharepoint development?

2 - If so, is there a way around this (legally, of course)?

Many thanks.

Answer 1

1: No, I only use it to reprogram list definitions, etc., but you can also use Stramit CamlViewer to

2: no

I believe that the easiest way to develop Sharepoint with VS is to use the WSPBuilder extensions found in CodePlex. You simply recreate the “12-hive” in your VS project and add “Features”, etc. Then use the WSP constructor to pack all its contents into a deployable WSP file.