I need a new development environment for SharePoint 2010 so I decided to install SharePoint Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2. I have split the whole process into different parts consisting of Windows Server 2008 R2, Active Directory, SQL Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint Server 2010.

1. Overview and hardware requirements
2. Windows Server 2008 R2 software requirements
3. Windows Server 2008 R2 configuration
   • Web Server (IIS) role and Application Server role including .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
   • SharePoint 2010 software prerequisites
   • Pop3, SMTP, Outlook
4. Active Directory installation and configuration
5. Administrative and service accounts
6. SQL Server 2008 R2 software requirements
7. SQL Server 2008 R2 installation and configuration
8. SharePoint Server 2010 installation
9. SharePoint Server 2010 configuration
   • Diagnostic logging
   • Usage and health data collection
   • Outgoing e-mail 
10. SharePoint Foundation 2010 Service Applications and Services
11. SharePoint Server 2010 Service Applications and Services

If you need to install MOSS 2007 on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 you can use the following articles:

• Installing MOSS 2007 on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 - Part 1: Overview

Overview

Since I don’t own a laptop with 8GB Ram I decided to set up a small single-tier SharePoint Server 2010 farm using Hyper-V. After I get a new one I will separate the SQL Server from the application and front-end Web servers. But that’s a different story and for now I have the following farm topology:

Hardware requirements

This part is very short since it applies to

• a single server with built-in database and
• server farm installations including a single server or multiple servers.

So according to Microsoft TechNet [1] you need:

• Processor
  Beta: 64-bit, dual processor, 3 GHz
  RTM: 64-bit, four cores
• RAM
  4 GB for stand-alone or evaluation installation and 8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use
• Hard disk
  80 GB
• Other
  DVD drive

The requirement for 64-bit hardware and software was announced earlier in 2009 and therefore you need to use at least a Windows Server 2008 64-bit installation.

Resources

Here are the resources used in this article:

• [1] Determine hardware and software requirements

Next steps

Please take a look at Part 2: Hardware and software requirements.