Virtual Lab Advice

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Hi All,

Just some advice wanted regarding setting up a virtual lab for the 70-685 exam.

I have 2 books, the MS Press book - MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-685): Windows 7 Enterprise Desktop Support Technician which suggests using Oracle Virtual Box with Server 2008r2 and windows 7, and the Sybex one - Windows 7 Desktop Support and Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond (Exams 70-685 and 70-686) which calls for Windows VPC with Windows server 2008 and windows 7.

I don't have a problem with the software as I have a technet subscription and have downloaded the evaluation editions.

I will be running the lab on my laptop, AMDv enabled, W7 ultimate 64 bit 8 gig ram, lots of hard drive space.

Is there much difference between W2K8 and W2K8r2?

Which visualization package would people recommend?

Many Thanks

Tony

 

Judging from your current study plan you'll have two options of which both are free software options. The first being VMware server or Microsoft's VirtualPC and these can be downloaded from the vendors web site.

Cheerio and best wishes

 

Hi All,

Many thanks for that, I’ve worked out I could use the following,

Windows Virtual PC – free, No 64bit support for guests
Oracle(Sun) Virtual Box – free, 64bit support for guests
VMware Player – free, 64bit support for guests
VMware Workstation – not free, 64bit support for guests

Or I could swap out the hard drive, fit a new one then install W2K8r2 as described here. “http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/” and use Hyper V, keeping the original drive safe.

Another option is to install Windows VPC and Virtual Box and use as required as I work through the books.

I might just go the MS Press book route, MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-685): Windows 7 Enterprise Desktop Support Technician which suggests using Oracle Virtual Box with Server 2008r2 and windows 7, and cross referance to the other book as I work through it. This will probably be the easiest option and not confuse me.

Cheers

Tony

 

I was going to suggest just that, I have followed the instructions on that site and it worked a treat.
Hyper-V is the way to go as far as desktop virtualisation (more for the differencing disk than anything else).

 

Hi Simon,

The W2K8r2 workstation idea looks interesting, but in this instance after considering all the options, I think I will keep it simple and just use Virtual Box for the study lab. I have an unused MS voucher that expires early Feb next year so I need be ready before then.

I may do the W2K8r2 thing when I rebuild my desktop at the back end of the year.

Cheers

Tony