So you want to get SharePoint up and running on your laptop or desktop? There is no need for you to have to go figure this out on your own since we have already done all the work for and figured out the options we have available to us.
SharePoint requires a 64 bit machine, there is no way to get around this. You cannot run it in Virtual PC or XP Mode.
Two options:
1. Boot to Windows Server 2008 R2
- Native Physical Boot
- Native VHD Boot
- Install SharePoint Locally (Recommended)
- Hyper-V Run SharePoint Virtually
2. Boot to Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate 64bit
- Native Physical Boot
- Native VHD Boot
- Install SharePoint Locally
Memory Recommendations:
You have to have atleast 4 GBs of RAM, do not bother trying to run this without atleast 4 GBs of RAM.
I have two machines that I am running it on, one has 4GBs of RAM and one has 8GB of RAM. I am choosing to run the much lighter Windows Foundation on the 4 GB machine and it workds very smoothly. I am running SharePoint in a Virtual Machine as well as local physicall installation on the 8GB machine and the virtual machines can still be slow at times but the local install it is very quick and works well.
*Note: Before going and asking for memory upgrades and all that, I would recommend starting with the Foundations version and logging some hours there first, not every has to have the full blown SharePoint Server version right now.
Get the Trial SharePoint foundations
hereGet the Trial SharePoint Server Beta
here
Instructions for getting it installed on windows 7 (follow them to the letter or suffer ALSO !!READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AS WELL AS THE COMMENTS FIRST!!)
here