Windows Server 2008 Screencast: Setup Overview

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Welcome to my first screencast on Windows Server 2008. What better place to start than with the setup itself. Now I've done a bunch of installs of Windows Server 2008 and really its dead easy to get a server up and running now. When you compare it to Windows Server 2003 it is a lot easier. For example you don't have to type a product key in order to complete the setup. This can be done later so you can get on with getting the server built. All you need to do is provide the following:

  • You'll need the DVD of course if your going to build a physical machine. If you are going to use this in a virtual environment then I have found an ISO works best.
  • You'll need to choose a language and regional settings.
  • Accept the licensing terms.
  • Choose a disk to install to and that's it.

So it's pretty easy. And it's easy because Windows Server 2008 uses the same setup engine that Windows Vista uses which is the WIM format. The WIM format has many advantages over common sector based imaging formats. The first being that it's file based which means it's hardware-agnostic; you can have multiple images within one file and it has really good compression.

So given that Windows Server 2008 uses this format as well it just means a whole lot more flexibility when comes building servers. I'll get to that in a future screencast. 

So for this Screencast you have two choices for viewing.  I'm experimenting with embedding the video using Soapbox on MSN which you can click on below to watch.  However if that doesn't have the right fidelity then click on the photo below that to watch in Windows Media Player.

srv08 setup

Technorati Tags: Longhorn, Screencasts, Webcasts, Windows Server 2008

Cheers, Jeffa