I am very excited to announce our upcoming TechNet events for the remainder of 2010. Based on the feedbacks from those who attended our events in the past few quarters, we have made some changes on our deliveries. We will have two tracks simultaneously delivered in the US east coast. The ten Windows 7 Deployment events are delivered by John Baker and Blain Barton. While eight SharePoint 2010 are by Yung Chou and Bob Hunt.

These are so called Firestarter events with the first session starts from 9 AM and the last and fourth finished by 5 PM. And throughout the day we will have sessions relevant to a specific technical focus. We are hoping with this format more technical depth can be delivered within a short period of time. The following is the schedule. The registration links have the location information and abstracts. Most events are to be delivered in Microsoft offices and the seats are very limited. So register early. You have been here advised. :)

MVPs, user group leaders, and IT influencers relevant to each track, please let us know you are coming. We would like to know the activities in your areas and how we may better assist you growing the communities.

See you all at the event near your city.

is a free download from Microsoft. It is a low-cost entry-level Web-based collaboration solution for small organizations or departments. SharePoint Foundation (SPF) 2010 is the underlying infrastructure for SharePoint Server 2010 and the new version of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0. Frequently SPF is also used as a pilot or proof of concept before enterprise roll-out of a SharePoint solution.

Almost everything an IT  pro needs to know about SPF including requirements, what’s new, Getting Started, planning, deployment, and operations is in a technical library on the web and in Help (or chm) format for downloading as shown below. Similarly technical libraries of SharePoint Server 2010 on the web and in Help format are also available. These technical libraries are must-have references and my recommended bedtime readings for IT pros serious about SharePoint. 

Notice in the Help format version, once downloaded if the text in the Help file does not appear as expected, instead "Navigation canceled," "Action canceled," or "The page cannot be displayed" is displayed, please proceed with the following steps to unlock the file:

1. Right-click the Help file, and click Properties.
2. Click Unblock, and then click OK.
3. Double-click the file to open it.

The following table highlights the minimum requirements of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and SharePoint Foundation (SPF) 2010 for preliminary upgrade planning for SPF2010. Since SPF2010 is the underlying infrastructure for SharePoint Server (SP) 2010, information presented here is applicable to upgrade planning for SP2010 as well.

Notice that the following scenarios are not supported in upgrading to SPF2010:

• Upgrade from a farm running WSS 3.0 earlier than SP2

• Direct upgrade from a farm running WSS 2.0/SharePoint Server (SPS) 2003. In this case, one must go from WSS 2.0/SPS2003 to WSS 3.0/MOSS2007 before going to SPF2010/SP2010.

For production deployment, please do reference the links in Official Requirements of the table to get the latest information.

(A cross-posting from SharePoint Experts Blog)

Office Web Apps are online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote giving you the freedom to work on Microsoft Office documents with browsers. This screencast gives a high-level overview of the requirements to deploy Office Web Apps in a SharePoint environment, what is a SkyDrive, how you can experience Office Web Apps today, etc. Additional information is also available from the post, Office Web Apps with SharePoint 2010 or SkyDrive Explained.