Using Windows 2008 on a Laptop

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I've taken the plunge and installed Windows 2008 64-bit on my laptop after a re-imaging "opportunity" caused by IpSec and dogfooding a pre-release of some software that will remain nameless.

So far my trusty Dell 820 is working pretty well. Disk to disk copy was a respectable 45 MB/Sec, and I can use Hyper-V and VMM 2008 to play with my virtual machines.

Some common issues to watch out for that got me:

A) Bluetooth - I gave up
B) The Essential Windows Search in Outlook not installed by default. I used this blog to help https://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/2008/03/17/enable-windows-search-service/
D) Windows LiveWriter didn't work. Hard coding of o/s checks into setup - naughty naughty. I used this blog to help  https://weblogs.asp.net/cazzu/archive/2008/03/25/installing-windows-live-writer-on-windows-2008.aspx 

e) a few things are not installed by default, but can be selected from Roles and Features - like Desktop experience, Wireless LAN Management and dot.net 3.0.

f) Could not find a video driver for love nor money - I tries the NVidia Vista x64 bit driver available from dell and it worked!! no blue screens yet ;-)