Setting BasicHTTPBinding for WCF service in Visual Web Express 2010 - wcf

Question

I'm creating a WCF service using Visual Web Developer Express 2010. I'd like to try out various bindings for educational purposes.
My memory from 2008 is that the web.config automatically included a section in for <services>, which I then would edit to change the endpoint binding, for example to basicHttpBinding
However my autogenerated 2010 service does not include <services> and any child endpoint or binding details under <system.serviceModel> (see web.config below). Do I need to add this element to the Web.config manually, or is there an alternative way that this should be configured? Or is this a limitation of the Express edition?
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
<!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false
and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
<!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes,
set the value below to true. Set to false before deployment
to avoid disclosing exception information -->
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
UPDATE 1 - I've found the following link which seems to describe the same behaviour - investigating now: http://forums.silverlight.net/t/166429.aspx/1

Answer 1

The version of Visual Studio doesn't matter here - it's the version of the .NET framework that is causing your confusion. In .NET 4.0 there are default WCF settings which means that a service can be hosted without any configuration.
MSDN Introduction to WCF 4 will explain more.
If you create the project as a .NET 3.5 project the configuration will be required (and will be added when you 'add new WCF service').
You can add the configuration in .NET 4.0, but if you are new to WCF it's easier if it were automatically generated so you had a starting point to work from.

Answer 2

It seems that WCF 4 creates a default end point if one isn't defined. From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee354381.aspx
In an effort to make the overall WCF experience just as easy as ASMX,
WCF 4 comes with a new “default configuration” model that completely
removes the need for any WCF configuration. If you don’t provide any
WCF configuration for a particular service, the WCF 4 runtime
automatically configures your service with some standard endpoints and
default binding/behavior configurations. This makes it much easier to
get a WCF service up and running, especially for those who aren’t
familiar with the various WCF configuration options and are happy to
accept the defaults, at least to get started.