Sharepoint 2010 beta development environment

Since sharepoint 2010 beta comes as a 64 bit version it requires windows server 2008/ R2, It becomes really difficult for me and lot of IT folks out there to setup a development environment. The reasons are since I have windows vista 32 bit home edition I cant create a virtual machine with either Microsoft virtual PC or vmvare because the host should also be a 64 bit version. I'm left with the option to either upgrading my laptop to Windows 7 64 bit or sit idle and scratch my head :).

After searching through the internet I found this fantastic article which explains you the step by step process of installing Windows server 2008 R2 Evaluation version. The Post also mentions that we can use the eval verions for 240 days... wow that's excellent. It provides you with two options of installtion... one is the clean installation and other is a Multi-boot option.

In my case i tried to create a Multi-boot installtion but couldn't complete it... The reason being since I had only 130GB of HDD space with Vista and other software taking 50% space and I could shrink my HDD to only 22GB(for windows server 2008 installation) which I thought is off no use for running sharepoint and sql server.

To gain something you have to lose something.

So i decided to start with a clean installation sacrificing my windows vista. I downloaded windows server 2008 R2 from microsoft site and tell you what, Its a fantastic experience installing Win2008 R2. Initially i feared that I might have performance issue running a server in laptop(2GB Ram, Intel Dual core, 130GB HDD). But Win2008 R2 performances really fantastic and now I have installed SharePoint 2010 beta, sql server 2008 beta. I know these are all trial versions, but still I can use these for few months and learn SharePoint 2010 and I should thank Microsoft for providing these softwares as trial versions.

Please check the screen shots Windows Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint 2010 beta.

If any of the folks out there have any better experience, drop in your comments.

Hope this helps.