The SharePoint 2010 Feature Solution Framework : Writing Your First SharePoint Console App

On your SharePoint development machine, create a new Console Application in Visual Studio 2010. As shown in Figure 1, make sure your target framework is .NET 3.5. This is because SharePoint 2010 is built on .NET 3.5 SP1.

Figure 3. Target Framework set to .NET 3.5

Add a reference to Microsoft.SharePoint.dll. You will find this reference under the .NET tab of the Add References Dialog within Visual Studio. Look for Microsoft.SharePoint.

Right-click your project and choose properties. Under the Build section, change the platform of your console application to AnyCPU or x64. The default in Visual Studio 2010 is x86, because it is envisioned that for a very long time to come x86 apps will be the default application of choice unless an application needs to deal with massive amounts of data. x64 apps require too much segment calculation for them to be efficient in most scenarios. On the other hand, AnyCPU apps have an initial starting overhead, but once they are started, they run quite well. (I prefer to go with AnyCPU in most instances.)

Finally, write some code in your static void main, as shown in the following:

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://sp2010"))
{
    Console.WriteLine(site.RootWeb.Title);
}

Remember to add a using statement for Microsoft.SharePoint.