Channel 9 has all (most) of the recent TechEd sessions on line - 
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011
There are a lot of other videos on just about every subject you can think of 
there. Start at http://channel9.msdn.com/

Just about every MS Technology has a home page, like say 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/grouppolicy/default.aspx for 
group policy. There are evaluation downloads, white papers, videos, you name 
it. All free, it just takes time to go thru them all. You could become an 
expert in pretty much anything Microsoft by spending enough time on the 
Microsoft.com site.

There are also a bunch of TechNet resources that are free on line. Start at 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb291022. This will get you to the labs, 
videos, eval software and much more. I've found it all to be pretty good, but 
some of the older stuff might come up with missing links here and there.


...Tim

From: Steven Peck [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2011 9:38 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Lab Resources and other educational things

Let's start a new thread.

Lab Resources and test environments.

Microsoft has some nice stuff at their virtual labs.  This is all free. It's 
not in depth but can often provide a nice overview 'this is how it looks like' 
environment before doing something if you have no resources.  You can do them 
several times. I generally download the pdf lab and do the lab once.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/vlabs/default.mspx

I have an older HP Media Center Pavilion system with 8GB ram at home.  I run 
WIndows 2008r2 with HyperV on it with the base system being a DC.  I can get 4 
to 5 very slow guests up on it but frankly don't care about the speed.  I have 
3 320GB drives I run guests on.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx
NOTE:  You can download time limited iso's from Microsoft.  The downside is you 
have to rebuild your environment every 120 days.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx
Get good at scripting setups for your environment and this is less painful then 
it could be.  (user account creation/password, etc)
Currently I blew up my test lab and it's getting rebuilt.

If I need to expand my guests, I run Virtual Box on my own system which I game 
with.  It's a few years old but can get 2-3 guests up if I don't task them much.
http://www.virtualbox.org/

Your own domain name.  They are cheap.  It's useful to have something that is 
'yours'.  Nothing teaches you like getting something real to interact on the 
Internet.

Steven Peck
http://www.blkmtn.org


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