In SharePoint 2010 there is a new way to handle site templates, which I personally think is a very good improvement, and I will try to cover the changes here.

When saving a site as a site template (found in Site settings and Site Actions) it will in SharePoint 2010 be saved as a .wsp file and stored in the Site collections solution gallery. This makes it very easy to reuse and redeploy the site template to other site collections or to other farms. It also means that the Site template gallery we had in the previous version is no longer needed or available in SharePoint 2010.

When the solution is saved it will automatically get activated so that if you want to create a new sub site within your site collection the Site template will be available directly after it is saved. So when choosing Site actions and New site it will be available there as seen below.

So what about saving a Site collection as a site template? Well since end users are not able to create Site collections from the UI you need to find a way to apply your new site template without having it to be deployed globally. Microsoft has thought of this so when creating a Site collection from Central administration you have the option to select “select template later”.

This option does not only mean that when browsing to the site the first time you are able to select any of the available templates but you are able to upload a new Site template and by doing that the wsp will be saved in the new Site collection solution gallery. Quite neat isn’t it?

As you can see below, we are browsing to the new site and from there we have the link to our Site collection solution gallery. There we can upload the .wsp-file containing our site template. Next time we browse to the site collection root our new site template will be available under the custom tab.