Sol 3

I am interested in running the 3.0 Framework with an eye towards WCF, WWF, Info Card and File System.  I have VPCs setup per Andrew Connell's post at http://andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/UseVirtualPCsDifferencingDisksToYourAdvantage.aspx.  I am running Win 2003 Standard Server, SQL 2005 and VS 2005 Architect as my overall base image.  In my working image I want to add on Framework 3.0.  So far so good.

I also talked (via email) with Tom Archer (MS) to get the latest scoop for downloads and such.  Here is his suggestion for a Win XP / Win 2003 Server instance as of today (11 Oct 2006):

For September CTP on Windows XP SP2

• Microsoft Pre-Release Software Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 - September CTP (.NET Redist (4506.03))
• Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit (ISO) for September CTP of Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components (Windows SDK (5728.0.4))
• Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” Community Technology Preview – Development Tools for .NET Framework 3.0 (VS Extensions)
• Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Extensions for Windows® Workflow Foundation Release Candidate 5 (WWF)

The next step, once I finsish the VPC creation steps is to look into running Virtual Server instead of VPC.  With Virtual Server I can run multiple VPC images (limited by memory of course) and have a sandbox that is truly across 2 or 3 machines.  Since some of the work I am planning on doing utilized the Windows Communication Foundation (MSMQ in particular) having a server up and running with the master MSMQ controller and AD will be of benefit.

More later as I learn through this process.  Maybe even some images of how I set up the VPC core base, base and working images.