Speaking Across India: My SharePoint Journey at Microsoft Tech Ed 2006

As we wrap up the final day in Bangalore, we’re concluding an exhilarating Microsoft’s India Tech Ed 2006 tour. This year, the event traversed six major cities: Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, bringing cutting-edge tech knowledge to professionals across the country. While I couldn’t make it to Delhi, I had the privilege of presenting in all the other cities.

In most locations, I delivered two distinct presentations:

1. Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for Developers
2. Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for IT Pros

The exceptions were Pune and Hyderabad, where I presented a single session in each. What made this experience particularly fascinating was the opportunity to address two different audience profiles. Tailoring the content and presentation style to suit both developers and IT professionals provided a unique challenge and learning experience. It was rewarding to see how SharePoint 2007 resonated differently with each group, highlighting its versatility and broad impact on the tech industry.

This tour has been an incredible journey, allowing me to connect with tech enthusiasts across India and share insights about the powerful capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint 2007.

Virtual Server 2005 R2 is faster than Virtual PC

Installing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) was a challenging task. I created a Virtual PC Image with Windows Server 2003 R2, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2005 SP1, Visual Studio 2005, WWF (Workflow) Beta 2 Runtime, Windows SDK with WinFX, Workflow Integration with Visual Studio (Orcas), and Office 2007 Professional, then finally added MOSS 2007. After configuring everything, I found that on a Virtual PC in my laptop, it was slow even with 1GB RAM allocated to the VPC. So, I switched to Virtual Server 2005 R2 and used the Virtual Server Add-Ons. The performance improved significantly, but I had to use a web browser to start and stop the VPC and then connect using the Virtual Server Remote Client, which was less convenient than using Virtual PC. I haven’t been able to find the Shared Folder options in Virtual Server yet, and I’m still searching for it.

Virtual Server 2005 R2 (VSR) works well on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 but doesn’t install correctly on Windows Vista. So, if you are using Vista, you are stuck with Virtual PC.