Windows Server 2008 screencast - Setup

If you don't have the resources to install and begin using Windows Server 2008 Beta 3, you have other training options.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be rolling out a bunch of screencasts to give you a great Technical Overview of the product.  The number of "casts" in this series will be high because I'm breaking the capturing into smaller chunks.

For instance, this first screencast is a little over seven minutes in length.  How did I install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise in seven minutes?  Well, first of all I have a smoking fast Lenovo ThinkPad T60p.  That certainly helps but the real magic comes via the capturing tool, Camtasia.  Camtasia lets me pause the recording of the capture so a thirty minute progress bar can essentially be removed from your boredom.  So let's dive into the details of the product and tools.

Setup

Setup for Windows Server 2008 (WS 2008) could not be easier.  You won't find a ton of information on setup just yet but it's coming.  Setup isn't nearly as sexy as the services and features in the product.  If you spent some time learning the deployment tools with Windows Vista, that knowledge will come in handy.

Windows Server 2008 installation is based on some of the same toolset and imaging technologies used by Windows Vista.  When you boot from the WS 2008 DVD, Windows PE executes and loads the installation Windows Imaging (WIM) file.  Within the WIM, you'll find multiple images that are available for customization and unattended installation.  The product key you enter tells Setup which image to load and install.  In the case of Windows Server 2008, you still need to give setup some help because there are two images for each key.  One for the GUI version of the product and another for the Core version.  We'll get to the differences in other screencasts down the road.

For today's demo, we are going to go through the GUI based install of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Beta 3.  In another demonstration, we'll go though the process of installing Enterprise Core.

The Screencast

The Setup screencast is a little over seven minutes and will stream directly off the microsoft.com cluster.  Although the screencast resolution is set to 1024x768, setup processing flips the resolution a few times so it isn't as perfect as some of the demos you'll see in demos coming over the next couple of weeks.  So here's the Windows Server 2008 Setup Demonstration:

mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/inetpub/keithcombs/ws2008/Setup.wmv

 

Additional Resources

https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/evaluation/overview.mspx

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/2008/default.mspx

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/longhorn.mspx