Now that I have managed to get a new MSDN subscription I’m about to upgrade my physical testserver with Windows 2008 R2 Server, SQL Server 2008 and SharePoint 2010. Despite all the good installation wizards included in the softwares it requires more knowledge and understanding then just click on the right buttons so to speak.
One of the best online resources that can be found is Critical Path Training who provides some great articles about MOSS. In addition to the mentioned online resources in my blog article SharePoint – The Start I would recommend to take a closer look into their excellent article SharePoint Server 2010 RTM Virtual Machine Setup Guide. To get access to it You need to create a new account at their site and the article can then be found under the Members section.
Microsoft has recently released the SDK for SharePoint 2010 which can be found at Welcome to the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SDK. The Microsoft SharePoint Team has also recently published a blog article about available language packs to SharePoint. For more information please see the article Language Offerings for SharePoint 2010 Products.
At present I have no intention to look for new books that cover version 2010. I still have some chapters left in the books I bought the first time I set up the server.
The main reason that drives me to invest time with the SharePoint platform is, of course, the Excel Services. For me it’s still a compliment to develop custom solutions with Excel and with .NET (automation and add-ins).
Do You do any work with SharePoint and in particular with Excel Services? What is Your experience with the Excel Services?
Kind regards,
Dennis
Edit Note:
The same day as this article was published Erika Erhli (MSFT) published a compiled list of online resources at MSDN for SharePoint 2010: MSDN: Getting Started with SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Advanced Developer Training
Andreas Glaser has had the kindness to update his great tutorial for installning SharePoint 2010 with SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows 2008 R2 Server. For more information please see: Installing SharePoint Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 – Part 1: Overview
VSTO & .NET & Excel 
I have some experience with Excel Services but SharePoint can be a nightmare to work with. Our company uses http://www.fpweb.net. Takes care of the dirty work for us. They even helped us with the upgrade to 2010. Good post, thanks for the helpful links.
Comment by Servernerd — May 14, 2010 @ 10:41 pm
Sounds as an excellent idea to outsource the administration and maintenance. In that way it should be possible to spend the time on the business side of using SharePoint.
Interesting that You bring up the possibilites to get into heavy difficulties. I think it would be interesting to learn more about the issues people get into when using SharePoint.
BTW, in what way do You use Excel Services in?
Kind regards,
Dennis
Comment by Dennis Wallentin — May 15, 2010 @ 2:13 am