INFO: What I’m Running

  • Article

Every now and then I like to update folks on what I’m running on my hardware.  Below you’ll find information on what my hardware is and what I choose to run on it.

Here is my newest rig info:

  • Hardware
    • Lenovo T61P
    • 4 GB of RAM
    • SATA Optical Bay Adapter with 160 GB laptop hard drive
  • Software
    • Windows Server 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition with Hyper-V
    • Office 2007 SP1
      • Including Visio 2007, Project 2007 and SharePoint Designer 2007
    • Windows Live Essentials
    • Live Mesh
      • Forced install by downloading mesh.exe and running it from a command prompt with /force
    • Paint.NET
    • Office Communication Server Communicator with full VOIP and Unified Messaging
      • My computer is my phone and instant conference bridge
    • Visual Studio 2008 SP1
      • I thought long and hard about putting this on since I do everything in a virtual (now Hyper-V) machine
    • SQL Server 2008 (client install only)
      • I thought long and hard about putting this on since I do everything in a virtual (now Hyper-V) machine
    • Daemon Tools
      • Careful installing this now as there is a bunch of bloatware in the installer, but a rock solid virtual optical drive emulator

The biggest change is obviously making the jump to running Windows Server 2008 x64.  The great thing is that it runs like a dream.  Visit https://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/ for more in formation, screen shots and tutorials for information on how to do this.  Prepare for an afternoon of researching and installing drivers for your machine.  In my experience on having done this on a Toshiba M700 and the Lenovo T61P, all Vista drivers worked on Windows Server 2008.  Also, you will have to download some tools mentioned on the site above to find out exactly what type of hardware you have so you can get their drivers.  If the manufacturer has their act together, the drivers will be a breeze to find (Lenovo).  Otherwise, you’ll be pulling them off of download sites from around the net (Toshiba).

I have the desktop experience on and it looks and smells like Vista.  Hyper-V turns off power management (it was designed as a server product feature after all).  This means that the power button is just a power button (on/off) and standby/hibernate is gone.  For me that was OK as I wasn’t a standby/hibernate guy anyway. 

Hyper-V ROCKS.  It is so superior to VPC.  On 4 GB of RAM I can now run 3 VM’s (Allocated with 1024 MB of RAM) simultaneously while running Outlook.  It does get a bit dicey when I try to make a phone call with communicator, but the VM’s stay responsive and Communicator struggles (which would by my preference).  All in all, a positive experience.  Once last note, Tablet PC users will miss most tablet PC functionality (TIP) as I don’t think anyone has gotten it to work on Windows Server 2008 yet.