SharePoint 2010 Beta Installation (Part 2): Choosing the right laptop

This is the second post in a series of posts where I'll use numerous screen shots to walk you through the steps to install SharePoint 2010 and all its prerequisites such as OS, SQL Server, service packs, cumulative update packages, etc.

My goal in this post is to help you choose the right laptop. There are several considerations that you should keep in mind. One is drivers. To make life easy on yourself make sure you purchase a laptop for which the manufacturer already has all the required drivers for Windows Vista (64 bit). You may be wondering why I mentioned Vista 64 bit. This is because we'll be installing Windows Server 2008 (64 bit) in the next post. I know you have the option of using Windows 7 but I'll be using Windows Server 2008 (64 bit).

From what I have seen so far drivers that work for Windows Vista (64 bit) on a particular hardware specification (laptop model) work fine for Windows Server 2008 (64 bit) as well. You can easily find out about a particular manufacturer's drivers for a particular laptop model by simply visiting that manufacturer's Web site.

For example, for the laptop that I purchased (HP HDX 16t 1200), I went to the following HP site:

I just entered the Product ID of the laptop (it's on the back of the laptop). This took me to the following page:

Then I clicked the Software & Driver Downloads, which took me to the following page:

As you can see, this page has a link titled Microsoft Windows Vista (64 bit). This seems to suggest that this manufacturer has drivers for Vista (64 bit) for this model. However, this does not mean that this manufacturer has all the required drivers for this model. You have to click on this link and navigate to the page that displays in detail which drivers are available:

As you can see, this laptop (HP HDX 16t 1200) has all the required drivers. I don't have to search for these drivers if I need them. I can easily download them from this page.

Drivers are just half the story. The other half is the system requirements as follows.

System requirements for Windows Server 2008 (64-bit):

• Processor:
  Minimum: 1.4 Hz
  Recommended: 2 GHz or faster
  
  
• RAM:
  Minimum: 512 MB
  Recommended: 2 GB or more
  
  
• Disk Space:
  Minimum: 10 GB
  Recommended: 40 GB or more

System requirements for SQL Server 2008 (64-bit):

• Processor:
  Minimum: 1.4 GHz
  Recommended: 2.0 GHz or faster
  
  
• RAM:
  Minimum: 512 MB
  Recommended: 2.048 GB or more
  
  
• Disk Space:
  Database Engine and data files, Replication, and Full-Text Search: 280 MB
  Client Components: 850 MB
  SQL Server Books Online and SQL Server Compact Books Online: 240 MB
  Analysis Services and data files: 90 MB
  Reporting Services and Report Manager: 120 MB
  Integration Services: 120 MB
  

System requirements for SharePoint Server 2010 (64-bit):

• Processor: 64-bit, dual processor, 3 GHz
  
  
• RAM:
  4 GB for stand-alone or evaluation installation
  8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use
  
  
• Disk Space: 80 GB

The laptop that I picked ((HP HDX 16t 1200) meets all of these requirements. I'm a bit short on processor speed though. Mine is about 2.3 GHz but I'm OK with that. In the next post, I'll use numerous screen shots to walk you through the steps to install Windows Server 2008 (64 bit).