Installing SharePoint Designer

If you have not installed SharePoint Designer already, let's kick off by installing it on our computer. We begin by inserting the installation media (e.g. DVD). We then enter our product key and click the Continue button.

Next, we carefully read all ten thousand words of the license agreement, tick the checkbox to say that we accept the terms of the agreement, and click the Continue button.

On the next screen, we have the option of installing the default configuration by clicking the Install Now button or of customizing our installation.

Virtually all of SharePoint Designer is installed by default. If we were to click on the Customize button, we would be able to install additional Office features such as Japanese font support and proofing tools. We would also be able to specify an alternative file location and provide different user information.

We will opt for the default setup by clicking the Install Now button (it is, after all, larger than the other button, so would seem to be the one that Microsoft would like us to opt for).

The installation program then spends about three minutes (or longer if we have a slow computer), installing SharePoint Designer on our system. Once it is finished, we can click on the Close button.

We can then start SharePoint Designer by going to Start | All Programs | Microsoft Office | Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007.

If we are using another website editing program on our computer, SharePoint Designer will ask us if we would like to make SharePoint Designer our default editor.

SharePoint Designer will then present us with the activation wizard. Let's go ahead and activate our product. We are now ready to use SharePoint Designer.