Develop Infopath 2010 with object model locally without SharePoint 2010

Question

1. I am on windows 7 enterprise
2. I have infopath 2010 installed my pc and have used it before
3. But due to my requirements I have to use object model to write code and it requires I add a reference to SharePoint
4. I read some article but it does not have any solutions for my need (it was on web part and remote debugging, they talked about export the registry and import it to local box)

My question is what do I need to install (bare mininum of SP Foundation or whatever it is) on my local pc so I can develop code and add sharepoint reference in visual studio.

Answer 1

Well the bare minimum is to add the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll (located in the 14 hives folder) to your project - but you are not going to be happy with it. You might be able to write code and the compiler will not complain about missing references but you will not be able to debug or get any information from the SharePoint objects because all information is stored in the specific databases (config db, content db).

The best solution is to install SP Foundation (preferably in a VM) - if you want to code against features which are only available in the Standard/Enterprise version (for example InfoPath Froms Service) you will have to install the correspondig version.