Minimum Requirements:
- Windows 7 64 bit: What this means is that your workstation needs to be 64 bit and you need to have the 64 bit version of Windows 7 installed.

Setup:
The key document that you need to follow for installing on Windows 7 is this article: Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint Server

Key Notes:
- This was installed on Windows 7 Build 7100
- I had UAC turned off
- I already had Visual Studio 2010 Beta before installing SharePoint
- You need to manually download and install the pre-requisites for SharePoint 2010
- You need to extract the setup (using /extract), change an xml file before being able to run setup on Windows 7.

Minor Deviation:
The only part of the guide that I was forced to skip was #5 of ‘Step 3: Install SharePoint’

The reason was that the install for the SQL Server patch kept asking for the other files in the multi-part zip. (Remember to unzip the file even though it has a .exe extension)

Summary:
Excluding the download times it took about 30 minutes to install SharePoint server on my Dell XPS laptop which has 4GB of RAM.

Although there is no guide published yet I was able to install Office Web Apps on my laptop as well, that guide will follow next.

The Wifi connection would be detected immediate but I would not get an IP from the DHCP server. I always had to fiddle around by disconnecting and connecting a few times.

Well today I got down the source. The problem was to do with the Virtual Machine Network Services that were installed when I added Virtual PC. Once I went into the WiFi Adapter properties and removed the Virtual Machine Network Services I was able to get my PC back to instant connectivity.

There are new shortcuts for maximizing, restoring and minimizing windows as well. I will now be retiring an old keyboard shortcut that I’ve been using since Windows 3.1 (if you didn’t know Alt+Space, X for maximizing and Alt+Space, R for restore and Alt+Space, N for minimize).

Here’s a full list of the new keyboard shortcuts from TechNet, I couldn’t get the Win+(+/-) Zoom working though.

Windows 7 beta 1 includes some handy new shortcut key combinations that allow you to navigate and manage the Windows workspace more efficiently. Here are 10 new Windows 7 shortcuts that will help you speed up your workflow (“Win” means the Windows Key):

Win+Home: Clear all but the active window
Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the active window or restore the window if it’s maximized
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the active window to each side of the monitor
Win+Shift+Left/Right arrows: If you’ve got dual monitors, this will move the active window to the adjacent monitor
Win+T: Shift focus to and scroll through items on the taskbar
Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display
Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out
Shift+Click a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that particular application

This is what nVidia says and you typically get it through Windows Update. I suffered with the title bar going missing and ugly black blocks on my desktop for a week before I figured that the nVidia beta drivers were to blame. It looks like others too are having the same problem.

It appears on Windows Update as: NVIDIA driver update for NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS (Prerelease – WDDM 1.1) Optional

If you already installed it you can either Rollback the Update:

1. Start-> type in ‘Device Manager’ and open it
2. Expand the Display adapters node
3. Double-click the NVIDIA node
4. On the Driver tab click ‘Roll Back Driver’

Or you could uninstall the driver

1. Start –> type in ‘Programs’ and launch ‘Add or remove programs’
2. In the search box (top right) type in ‘nvidia’
3. Right-click and uninstall the ‘NVIDIA Drivers’

After one (sometimes two) re-boots you should be all set.

Both setups ran fine without a hitch although the upgrade route took a couple of extra hours with all the migrating of application and user settings.

The good news is that I’ve been using both for over a week without any major hitches. The only problems I’ve had so far are to do with the 64-bit install. The first one being Windows Live Mesh which stays forever at the ‘Live mesh is starting’ step (there doesn’t seem to be any kind of fix out for this) and Google Chrome which flat out doesn’t work unless you add a flag to it’s startup. This seems to work for most cases except for a few place where it fails like the new Gmail Offline access using Gears.