Microsoft Launches VHD Testdrive: Freely Downloadable Virtual Machines To Evaluate Microsoft Softwar
Tuesday, 07 November 2006 by Michel Roth
At the eve of VMworld 2006, Microsoft is making available their new virtual hard disk (VHD) Test Drive Program, which allows customers to confidently evaluate enterprise software from Microsoft and its software partners in a fraction of the time. In addition, Microsoft will have booth demonstrations of its application virtualization, server virtualization and virtualization management tools.

More than twenty Microsoft partners have already committed to distributing software via VHD Test Drive Program by the end of the year, including Altiris, BEA Systems, Check Point, Citrix, CA, CommVault, Dell, FullArmor, HP, Network Appliance, Platespin, Portlock, Quest Software, SourceCode Technology Holdings, Symantec and UGS.

Some of the VHDs already available:

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition VHD
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 VHD - 32-bit version
Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 VHD
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition VHD

These are a pre-configured VHD images that requires Virtual Server 2005 R2 installed on your system. In addition to the System Requirements for Virtual Server 2005 R2, you will need additional disk and memory resources for running these virtual machines. These VHDs are pre-configured to use approximately 10GB of hard disk space and approximately 512MB of memory. All except the Windows Server 2003 VHD will expire after 30 days.

Read an SearchServerVirtualization article on Microsoft's VHD Testdrive program here. Check out Microsoft's VHD Testdrive home here.

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Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition VHD (22 February 2007)
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 VHD (26 February 2007)
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Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Announcements (14 April 2005)
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