How to deploy and activate SharePoint solution in SharePoint Server 2010 using web services?

Question

In SharePoint 2010, site templates (.stp files) are deprecated. Instead, solutions (.wsp files) are used to achieve the same effect, but also beyond that. Uploading .stp file and using it was straight forward in MOSS and WSS.

However, in SharePoint 2010, it is necessary to upload a solution and to activate it before using it. I need this functionality, and I also need it implemented through web services. Has anyone encountered something similar? Could anyone help? Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

OK, I've reached some people from the SharePoint design team at Microsoft and they have confirmed that there is no web service with a functionality to activate the solution. The upload of the solution should be done in a straight forward manner.

Answer 2

I unsure why you need to deploy a solution file using WebService. You can easily create a WSP Solution using this tool WSPBuilder and you can use Solution Installer to install the solution to the SharePoint farm. You can download the SharePoint installer's code and see what API to use to upload the solution to sharepoint.