Recently for one of my project, it was necessary to create couple of services. In the past I was using WCF, since my Services are going to be utilized through HTTP, I was thinking of ASP.Net web API. So I decided to create a Web API project. Now the real issue is that ASP.Net Web API launched after Visual Studio 2010 and I had to use ASP.Net web API in VS 2010 itself. By default there is no template available for Web API in Visual Studio 2010.

Microsoft has made available an update that installs ASP.Net MVC 4 with web API in Visual Studio 2010. You can find the update from the below url.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30683

Though the update denotes ASP.Net MVC 4, this also includes ASP.Net Web API. Download the installation media and start the installer. As usual for any update, you need to agree on terms and conditions.

The installation starts straight away, once you clicked the Install button.

If everything goes ok, you will see the success message.

Now open Visual Studio 2010, you can see ASP.Net MVC 4 Project template is available for you.

Now you can create ASP.Net Web API project using Visual Studio 2010. When you create a new ASP.Net MVC 4 project, you can choose the Web API template.

Further reading

http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/getting-started-with-aspnet-web-api/tutorial-your-first-web-api

http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4