Deploying SharePoint Solution using VSeWSS

Question

I have a development WSS 3.0 site that I wanted to move to a Production server. I am using VSeWSS 1.2 to do my deployment. I generated the SharePoint solution of the site with SharePoint Solution Generator 2008. When deploying it locally it works fine, but when I tried to deploy it to the remote Production server it would not deploy.

I then had to install VS and the VSeWSS on the Production server and deploy from there because of time constraints. I have seen references where the generated SharePoint solutions are able to deploy fine to remote servers.

What strategies should be used to effectively deploy SharePoint solutions to remote servers with the generated SharePoint solutions when using SharePoint Solution Generator 2008 in VSeWSS 1.2?

Answer 1

To my knowledge, THe solution generator works only on local machine. You can then package the resulting Visual Studio solution in a WSP file and deploy that to the server using STSADM.

You state

I have seen reference of the generated SharePoint solutions being able to generate fine to remote servers.

Could you please provide a link to where you have seen this?

Answer 2

You have to move the WSP to the server alone, you are not suppose to install anything in the production server, even more visual studio!.

Install it with:

stsadm -o addsolution -filename C:\mysolution.wsp
stsadm -o deploysolution -name mysolution.wsp -immediate -allowgacdeployment
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

*allowgacdeployment as it says, its for GAC installations only

It is very important to understand that solution deploy does not activate features like Visual Studio does, you have to whether activate then with the command line or access the 'Farm Features', 'WebApplication Features', 'Site Collection Features' or 'Site Features' pages depending on your feature Scope

For a pretty installer interface that checks for many requirements and might find out why your deploys might be breaking, use the free SharePoint Solution Installer