Creating a Read Only site in SharePoint

Step1: First of all we will check the current site permissions for the existing users and groups.

 To do that we click on Site Actions, under this we select Site Permissions

Step2: When you click on Site Permissions, you can see the existing permissions to the site users and groups. We can see users have different kind of permissions like Contribute, Design etc. We want them all to have only read access to the site.

Step3:  To achieve this we will write a SharePoint Feature in Visual Studio 2012.

Visual Studio 2012 can be opened from Start menu( in admin mode).

Step4: Here we you will select New Project under Start Page.

Select SharePoint as your project type in the left panel. Then you will select the .NET Framework 3.5 and select SharePoint 2010 Project under it. Now enter the name of the Project, Location & Solution name in the lower panel.

Step5:  When you click ok after filling all the entries in the form then select the desired site and the Type of solution

Then click on Finish. An empty SharePoint Project will be opened. In this under Solution Explorer you will see all the components of your solution.

Step6: Under Solution Explorer in Features right click  on Feature1 and click on Add Event Receiver.

Now we write will our code under  Feature1.EventReceiver.cs

Step7: After writing the complete code we will deploy the solution from Solution Explorer.

Step8: Now on the site, click on Site Actions-> Site Settings 

Step9: A new page will be opened, click on Manage Site Features

Step10: A new page will be opened with all the site features listed on it. Select  our feature and click on Activate

Step11: Once the feature is activated, you can check the site permissions again.

Here we can see the permissions for the users and groups have been modified. Now they have only Read access to the site, they can’t make any changes to the site now.