This rocks! Microsoft has released a SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 evaluation VHD complete with everything including Visual Studio 2010 and Office 2010 installed and ready to go. Download this excellent developer resource here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0c51819b-3d40-435c-a103-a5481fe0a0d2

However, the post says that you'll need 50GB to install the two Hyper-V VMs. 50GB, Yikes! That said, my developer VM running Windows 7, SPF 2010 only, non-domain, non-standalone on top of a full SQL Server 2008 install is nearly 30GB.

Thank God for large external 2.5" drives.

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