Sharepoint development using Visual Studio Express?

Question

Having spent the past few weeks familiarising myself with WSS 3.0 I finally want to get around to doing some Sharepoint development. I have Visual Studio Express installed on my Sharepoint server, but when I try to install the "WSS 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio Extensions" from Microsoft it tells me that I don't have Visual Studio installed.

A quick check to the pre-reqs on the download site tell me that this extension only applies to the Standard, Professional, or Team editions.

So, two questions really:

1 - Do I need the WSS Visual Studio Extension in order to do Sharepoint Development?

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

Many thanks.

Answer 1

1: No, I use it only to reverse engineer list definitions etc, but you can use Stramit CamlViewer for that as well

2: No

What I believe is the easiest way to do Sharepoint development with VS is using the WSPBuilder extensions, found on CodePlex. You just recreate the "12-hive" in your VS project and add Features and such, then use WSP builder to package it all up in a deployable WSP file.