BootFests and InstallFests Coming Soon (like…..REAL soon!)

I apologize for the short notice on these events folks, but I have some cool hands-on meetups that I am organizing for a few locations in my coverage area. If you are in Boise, Portland, Seattle (primarily Eastside), or San Francisco…read on!

Do you have a need to use more than one operating system on the same machine? Would you like to be able to check out an operating system before permanently installing it to a system? Would you like to provide better portability, better isolation, and tremendous ease of use to your existing dual or multi-boot environment? Would you just like to experience how to install a Windows operating system from scratch? Well.....This event is for you!

Chris Avis, Technical Evangelist with Microsoft Corporation is hosting a Bootfest/Installfest at local Microsoft offices over the next couple of months!

Depending on the location, the events will consist of a Bootfest + Installfest, or just an Installfest.

BootFest - (10a - 12noon) - We will introduce you to as well as walk you through the process of doing a "Boot to VHD" of a Microsoft operating system. This process allows us to take an operating system that was created with a virtualized environment (ie; Windows Server 2008 R2 running as a guest virtual machine on a Windows Hyper-V server) and boot that VHD file natively! The booted operating system has access to all of the native hardware and can actually be moved from machine to machine for portability. Since the resulting operating system and all installed applications as well as user data is stored in a single file, it is isolated from any other operating system(s) you have installed.

Installfest - (1p - 4pm) - For the Installfest, we will be providing the bits to install Windows Server 2012 natively or via "Boot to VHD" to hardware you provide (see hardware requirements below). We will also have a brief presentation introducing Windows Server 2012 and new features. There will also be plenty of time for Q&A if you have questions about Windows Server 2012 or anything else Microsoft related

For our Bootfest, we will provide Boot to VHD files to allow booting to one of the following Microsoft Operating Systems

• Windows 8 Release Preview - Trial
• Windows Server 2012 - Trial
• Windows Server 2008 R2 - Trial

Please note - These are TRIAL versions and will expire after approximately 120 - 180 depending on the operating system. We do not recommend using these in production. Please use only for learning and training.

System Requirements for BootFest (Boot to VHD) -

• Desktop or Laptop running Windows 7 (any version), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter), Windows 8
• 4 gigs of RAM
• BIOS/CPU/Motherboard combo that supports, Intel/AMD Virtualization extensions and Data Execution Prevention
• 20 gigs or more of free drive space

***Other VERY IMPORTANT qualifiers*** -

• Boot to VHD will NOT work if your C:\ drive is encrypted with BitLocker or any other 3rd party disk/volume encryption.
• Boot to VHD will not work if your C:\ drive is compressed using NTFS compression
• Boot to VHD does not support booting to a VHD file stored on a remote network share or USB attached storage

System Requirements for InstallFest -

• Desktop or Laptop that you can install a clean operating system to (basically wipe it out and start fresh!)
• 4 gigs of RAM
• BIOS/CPU/Motherboard combo that supports, Intel/AMD Virtualization extensions and Data Execution Prevention
• 20 gigs or more of free drive space

If you would like to attend, please register with one of the links below -

Cheers!