John left a question in the comments, and I wanted to make sure other reader of my training kit got the information:

I bought your MS Press 70-642 Configuring Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure and would like to know how to set up the lab using Virtual PC 2007…

I have two Dell Latitude laptops running XP Pro SP3 with enough hard drive space that I should be able to install both Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Server 2008 on…they will be connected to each other via a 4-port Netgear switch…

Where can I get a free copy of Windows Server 2008 to use for the lab?…and do you have any suggestions on ensuring that the lab software don’t mess up these two laptops (I use both of them for business purposes)?

And later in an e-mail followed up with:

Actually, I was able to download WS2008 (and VPC 2007 SP1) from a MS download website yesterday (WS2008 was 1.9 GB and it downloaded as an iso file)…

I just have a few (dumb) questions about setting up the lab (please confirm the correctness and the sequence of the following steps):

1. I’m assuming that I need 3 actual computers physically connected to each other by a switch…true?

2. Next, install default? VPC 2007 on each computer.

3. Next, install default WS2008 on each computer (I am assuming I will install WS2008 while inside the VPC environment , or should WS2008 be installed outside of the VPC environment as you suggest?…if outside of the VPC environment, do I have to wipe the hard drive clean before installing WS2008, or can I keep the existing XP Pro SP3 OS and all of my apps and data files intact and install WS2008 in a separate partition?).

4. Next, do I rename the computers from inside or outside the VPC environment (however, I cannot change the real existing computer names on these computers because they are domain machines in my company’s environment…if I change their names, I will not be able to connect to my work network!).

Are there any other steps that I am missing?

Really appreciate any clarification you can provide!

My replies after the jump.

Hiya, John. Here’s a link to download a trial of WS08R2:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx

I know you found regular Windows Server 2008, but R2 is newer and better, and will be fine for the labs and such. Of course, it’s 64-bit only, so you’ll need to use Sun VirtualBox (which, if you watched this video, you know that I prefer anyway).

So, to answer your questions… You need either one of these setups:

• One physical computer with 3 GB or more of RAM. Install virtualization software (Sun VirtualBox, Virtual PC, Virtual Server 2005 R2, VMWare, whatever). You will then create two virtual machines, and install Windows Server 2008 (or R2) on both virtual machines. They’ll be automatically connected to the same virtual network.

- OR -

• Two physical computers with 1GB or more of RAM each. Install Windows Server 2008 (or R2) on both computers. Connect them to a network. You can plug them both into a switch, connect them to a wireless network, or even just run a crossover Ethernet cable between them and manually assign them IP addresses on the same network.

BTW, if you don’t mind blowing away XP, you’ll get way better performance out of those older laptops by installing WS08R2 on the computer directly. WAY better performance, because they probably don’t support hardware virtualization… You can install WS08 on a second partition, if you still want to be able to boot to XP.

It sounds like you can’t blow away your XP computers, though. If they don’t have 3GB of RAM, but they have 1.5GB-2GB of RAM, install Virtual PC or VirtualBox on both computers, and then install one WS08 virtual machine on each computer–the virtual machines will require 1GB each, at least.

When you rename the computers (which you don’t really need to do, the names in the book are arbitrary), do it within Windows Server 2008–in other words, within the virtual machine. If you use a single computer with virtualization software, you’ll do everything within the virtual machines. Other than installing the virtualization software, you won’t have to make any changes to the “host” computer.