Hello All,
Recently I installed Microsoft new Windows 7 Ultimate the version7600 on my machine 
. This RC version is going to be almost identical to the final release from Microsoft. I installed the trial version of it, downloaded from Microsoft site here. The trial version can be extended for 120 days of trial period. It can be done following the steps shown here.
Now my goal was to install the BizTalk Server 2009.
The steps I followed.
- Installed Visual Studio 2008 and later installed Service Pack 1 for it. Trial version can be downloaded here.
- Installed SQL Server 2008. Trial version can be downloaded here.
- Finally BizTalk Server 2009 and that’s it. Trial version can be downloaded here.
I know the steps are pretty straight forward but I was skeptical about everything getting installed perfectly. I have Sony Vaio VGN N250 E-Series and even before installing the Windows 7 I was skeptical that my Vaio drivers would work or not because my particular machine is like very choosy about the OS. I had got it when Windows Vista was first introduced in Jan 2007 I suppose. At that time I tried installing XP on my machine but no. There were no drivers software available for my machine anywhere and finally I had to reinstall Vista. Nothing worked at that time like sound drivers, wireless, etc. Now Sony does have drivers for XP for my machine. I did not bother much to do workaround at that time.
Anyways, so what I feel is Windows 7 is way better than Vista so far. I haven’t done yet any development with BizTalk or any other testing so if I just talk about usability, performance, looks than I felt its very good. It consumes so less memory than Vista. I have a 3GB RAM on my machine but when there was Vista it was always above 60%. Now even after installing all other software’s like KLCodec, Itunes, VLC Player, MS Office, few Messengers etc and the above 3 giant ones still Windows 7 does not consume so much memory. Even CPU usage is comparatively way efficient than Vista. I have became a fan of Windows 7 Ultimate.
Lets see if I can install the ESB 2.0 Toolkit on Windows 7 as according to its prerequisites it can be installed on Windows Server only. I ll try for some workaround this weekend and keep you guys posted.
Till than happy BizTalkinggg...!!!!
Thanks,
Vishal