How do I install ServiceStack without Nuget?

Question

I have Visual Studio 2008, and I want to try ServiceStack to make a REST web API. The problem is, Nuget generally can't be installed on VS2008. I have a zip with ServiceStack binaries but I am completely lost -- I just do not know where to put them and what else I might need to do. I am brand new to ServiceStack and haven't touched VS in 5+ years. I didn't know about Nuget until I was looking into ServiceStack.

Alternately, does ServiceStack work on a version of Visual Studio Express with which I could use Nuget to install it? I have read that Express doesn't support extensions, so I am guessing no. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Alternately, how do I get Nuget to work on VS2008? I found a webpage talking about it, but its instructions glossed over some key steps that I must not know about. I'm sure it would all make sense if I understood how it all worked, but I don't right now. I am a newbie and need all relevant specifics.

Alternately... well, any other thoughts?

This is one way to find out how to do that, although it will take some time. Download trial of VS2012, install ServiceStack using NuGet. Look what it added and where (binaries, references to them) and replicate it in VS2008 by hand. — Piotr Perak
Not a bad idea. In fact, I downloaded VS2012 Express just to see if it would work and... it does! I was able to use NuGet and install ServiceStack. I'm going to stick with VS2012 Express, but I think your approach is a good one anyway for learning how everything goes together. Thanks! — MysteriousWhisper

mythz mythz · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-04T20:02:16

Routinely we also publish deployed builds in the ServiceStack project /downloads. Currently the latest version is v3.9.28 which is what's on NuGet.

The /downloads on ServiceStack contains most of the project .dlls, what's not there are specific providers, e.g. OrmLite providers for alternate RDBMS's.

For these the best place to get them is in the NuGet zip packages deployed on NuGet. i.e. to get the OrmLite MySQL provider in OSX/Linux (or using gnu tools for Windows) you can just do:

wget -O ServiceStack.OrmLite.MySql.zip \
  http://packages.nuget.org/api/v1/package/ServiceStack.OrmLite.MySql/3.9.28

unzip ServiceStack.OrmLite.MySql.zip 'lib/*'

which will unzip the dlls in the local lib/ folder.

How do I install ServiceStack without Nuget?

1 Answers