How to Install CRM Developer Toolkit

CRM Developer Toolkit is the standard way for development and customization in MS Dynamics CRM. You can find basic information about the toolkit in this post.

Prerequisites for Installing CRM Developer Toolkit:

For successfully installing the Toolkit, you must have;

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional or Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. – Express editions of Microsoft Visual Studio are not supported.
• Microsoft Silverlight 4
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 includes the Silverlight 4 Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 in addition to additional updates to Visual Studio.
• Windows Identity Foundation – for CRM Only
  • Windows Identity Foundation is required when developing managed code applications for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
  • For information on installing or enabling Windows Identity Foundation, see Install Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) 3.5.

Download Applications:

• CRM 2011 SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=24004

• OR CRM 2013 SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=40321

• Windows Identify Foundation (for new machines)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17331

Installation Instructions:

Step – 01: Download CRM SDK as per the version of your CRM instance

. Step – 02: Double click on the downloaded file and select “Click here to accept the Microsoft Software License Terms’

you will be prompted to browse a location where you want to save the extracted folder.

all the files from the SDK will be extracted and saved in the selected location;

. Step – 03: Once the SDK folder has been extracted, open the folder. This would be the root folder structure

to find Developer Toolkit, click on SDK >> Tools >> DeveloperToolkit

. Step – 04: In the folder DeveloperToolkit, there will be two installers

If you have visual studio 2012 chose the vs12 otherwise choose the other one.

. Step – 05: Run the installer and you should soon be done with the installation

Please note that in case of a new machine, you will have to install Microsoft Identity foundation if this message is shown;

install this and continue with the installation of CRM Developer Toolkit. Download link of Microsoft Identity foundation is given in Prerequisites section of this post.

CRM Developer Toolkit is now ready to used.

Establish Connection with Dynamics CRM:

You have installed CRM Developer Toolkit and in order to begin using it now open Microsoft Visual Studio and click on “New Project” for Dynamics CRM

Once you have created a CRM project a pop up will appear used to connect your solution with CRM.  You have fill in the connection of your CRM application here.

You have installed CRM Developer Toolkit, connected it with Dynamics CRM and are ready to start writing your first CRM plugin. We will discuss CRM plugins in detail in the next post.

Happy CRMing!