Hardware

First and foremost, you will need a 64-bit machine. SharePoint 2010 mandates 64-bit hardware. Either a desktop or laptop will work. As I deliver presentations and attend speaking events frequently, I decided to get a Lenovo W510 (8GB RAM, 256GB Solid State Disk) laptop. The SSD is a little pricey but the performance gain is well worth it. The bootup time is blazing fast, and the noise factor is much lower. Make sure you load up on RAM and disk storage when purchasing the system. It is best to run the VM from a separate spindle from the host OS. If your budget allows, get two SSDs or at least a secondary high-speed disk drive. You will be grateful of the increased productivity and thank me later.

Virtualization

Once the hardware requirements are satisfied, you have to decide on the operating system configurations. SharePoint 2010 requires Windows 2008, but most systems come preinstalled with Windows 7. Your options include dual boot and virtualization. For maximal flexibility and convenience, I went with the virtualization route. The major virtualization options are Microsoft Hyper-V, VM Ware, and Sun VirtualBox. I have been using and liking the freebie VirtualBox since SharePoint 2010 beta came out few months ago. However, Hyper-V and VM Ware are probably more flexible. This comes down what you have available at your fingertips.

Architecture Topology

If portability is more important than scalability, a stand-alone installation will probably suffice as a sandbox solution. Otherwise, consider running a complete installation in case you need to ever delegate different application roles to numerous other servers/VMs.

Resources

http://delicious.com/kennethlo/sharepoint2010+sandbox

Above is my delicious bookmark collection that points to additional details on this topic. I followed Andrew Connell’s hardware recommendations. If you are using VirtualBox, Eric Harlan’s How to Install SharePoint 2010 Guide will be especially handy. Thank you, Andrew and Eric!

Mark Miller, the founder of EndSharePointUser.com, was extremely generous in lending his equipments and recording my session, Docs with Attitude: Enhancing Document Management with Content Types and Metadata. The embedded screencast is also avilable in its entirety on EndSharePointUser.com.

A few of the attendees have contacted me afterward for a demo. I will be releasing a follow-up screencast on how to implement content types in a couple weeks. Please stay tuned!

TechNet Virtual Labs: SharePoint Products and Technologies

TechNet Virtual Labs: Microsoft Office 2007 System

Through these VM sessions, you get first-hand experience in SharePoint technologies and Office 2007 system. You will learn and practice installation, organizing content, managing user permissions, creating Web Parts for custom tasks, and much more. Enjoy and welcome to SharePoint-land!

1. Click on “Site Actions” > “Site Settings”.

2. Under Galleries, click “Site columns”.

3. Select the desired data type of the column.

4. If you have not created a new group for the custom site columns, it is highly recommended that you do so now. Otherwise, select “Existing Group” and pick a group.

5. In the Additional Column Settings section, select as many as additional column settings as you like. The options available in this section depend on the column type that you selected in Step 3.

6. Click “OK”

Below are the steps to change the configuration:

* Click on the Office Button in the upper left cornner
* Click on Word Options > Advanced
Scroll down to “cut, copy, and paste” section
* Change the first four setting as you see fit