Windows Server 2008 beta trial download

Dark_Angel · 10 Jun 2007 at 20:58

Hey, on Microsoft I saw that you can get a trial download (they send you a serial number that expires next year) for Beta 3 of Windows server 2008... is there anything illegal about trying this for home use?

I have a box that I was curious how it would be, and not really tried windows server. I work with a few company's so also wanted to test it at home to see if it would be worth their time in using it...

Anyone have any ideas?

Burnsy2023 · 10 Jun 2007 at 21:00

Dark_Angel said:
Hey, on Microsoft I saw that you can get a trial download (they send you a serial number that expires next year) for Beta 3 of Windows server 2008... is there anything illegal about trying this for home use?

I have a box that I was curious how it would be, and not really tried windows server. I work with a few company's so also wanted to test it at home to see if it would be worth their time in using it...

Anyone have any ideas?

Nothing illegal about it whatso ever, but i'd suggest downloading a trial copy of 2003 server to get an idea of how it's supposed to work, so you can identify bugs.

Burnsy

iam · 10 Jun 2007 at 21:17

Finished downloading it a couple of hours ago, no machine to put it on though

Reading through the release notes there seems to be a fair few improvements (as you'd hope!), in particular advances with GP management (loads more configuration options in accordance with the release of Vista), new Powershell is integrated etc etc

Give it a go, just lie on the registration forms (I'm a senior consultant at a multi-national IT firm

). Let us know how you get on, will be a few days before I'm able to try it I expect

Dark_Angel · 10 Jun 2007 at 21:18

iam said:
Finished downloading it a couple of hours ago, no machine to put it on though

Reading through the release notes there seems to be a fair few improvements (as you'd hope!), in particular advances with GP management (loads more configuration options in accordance with the release of Vista), new Powershell is integrated etc etc

Give it a go, just lie on the registration forms (I'm a senior consultant at a multi-national IT firm ). Let us know how you get on, will be a few days before I'm able to try it I expect

How big is the download may I ask?

Burnsy2023 · 10 Jun 2007 at 21:20

Dark_Angel said:
How big is the download may I ask?

Between 1.5 and 4 GB depending on version.

iam said:
Finished downloading it a couple of hours ago, no machine to put it on though

Stick it on a VMware Virtual machine, I am....

Burnsy

malachi · 11 Jun 2007 at 00:25

Tried this on my file server a couple of weeks ago. Seems to be a Vista with loads of networking features. But its still a big improvement compared to server 2003.

Burnsy2023 · 11 Jun 2007 at 00:34

malachi said:
Seems to be a Vista with loads of networking features.

Thats what the server version of Windows essentially is and all it has ever been, although the core version of 2008 looks interesting.

Burnsy