I am new to sharepoint 2010 development and need help setting up the dev environment (virtual machine setup).
I have a new Windows 7 laptop (64bit and 4gb ram).
I have downloaded the vhd files (2010-10a.part01.exe etc) from the microsoft website.
I am unsure as to what the next step is. Do i need to install windows server 2008 r2 next? Will this work on laptop?
What i am asking is do i need to install 'windows server 2008 r2' on my laptop
Best Answer
Here is an alternative guide we used to install a SharePoint 2010 development environment, it can even be done on Windows 7 if you wish...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869.aspx (We just use our company AD for user handling in our development environments, not best practice I guess, but starting with SharePoint is a monster hassle IMO, so going for the simplest solution to get started first is my recommendation)
You will wan't more RAM for a VM developer setup. Personally I use 8GB+ of memory (and SSD's) for the Developer VM's I have running.
Obviously a Virtual Environment can be very desired for SharePoint development (rolling back etc.). So going with a VM ain't a bad choice, your machine just won't handle it very well as is now...