SharePoint Tools (Free!)

Today someone asked me for the tools I use when developing or working with SharePoint, or which I would recommend. I thought I posted about this way back, but realized that I haven’t yet. These are primarily development tools and I wouldn’t necessarily ‘recommend’ ever using them on a production box, but yes, in the past I have used some of them on a production environment. (All FREE)

1. SharePoint 2007 SDK - Sasmples, Help, How To Articles, BDC Tool, etc
   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550992.aspx
2. WSS 3.0 SDK - Samples, Help, How To Articles, and more
   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms441339.aspx
3. Reflector – Every developer who works with .Net should have this. It used to be Lutz, but now the redgate reflector is king of the town.
   http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/
4. SharePoint Manager 2007 - Incredibly useful diagnostic tool and for assistance with planning. http://www.codeplex.com/spm
5. STSDev - Terrific tool to help in building out small/large projects quickly.
   http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev
6. Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint
   The first one would be Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=19F21E5E-B715-4F0C-B959-8C6DCBDC1057&displaylang=en
   The second one would be Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5D61409E-1FA3-48CF-8023-E8F38E709BA6&displaylang=en
7. WSPBuilder - Terrific for creating quick WSP files.
   http://www.codeplex.com/wspbuilder
8. Solution Installer - Wonderful tool that is a must to help improve deployment management.
   http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointinstaller
9. U2U CAML Builder - Windows Client Version is my best friend. Saves so much time. http://www.u2u.info/Blogs/karine/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=28
10. Application Pool Manager – Spence created a terrific tool that sits in your task bar to help speed up recycling and other useful options.
    http://www.harbar.net/articles/APM.aspx
11. Registry Hack for “Right Click” Add Solution – Spence also made a great tool that makes it easier to add solutions that I always use.
    http://www.harbar.net/archive/2007/04/25/Rightclick-a-.WSP-to-Add-Solution.aspx
12. Log Viewer (makes reading through the logs on a dev box MUCH nicer)
    http://www.codeplex.com/features
13. SharePoint Debugger – This is a really simple one from Ted that quickly (by a feature) allows you to turn the custom errors on and off in the web config. This is something we all do, I just like this for reducing the chance of someone messing up the web config.
    http://www.tedpattison.net/downloads.aspx

Hope this helps someone improve their development or SharePoint experience,
Richard Harbridge

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Tags: Free Stuff, SharePoint Development, SharePoint Tools

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