Dual Boot: Leopard Server vs. Windows 2003 server

[Spinal]

So; my employer has decided to send me on the delta upgrade courses for OsX Leopard. Problem is, I don't feel like I've played enough with 10.5 server yet to get a hang of it - and I like to know what I'm doing before someone tries telling me!

At the same time, I'm trying to do the MCP courses (aiming for a MCSA at first, but eventually MCSE) but my problem here is more complex. At £1,500 per course x 7 courses, and taking into account I still need to pay for about 80% of my masters - I doubt I can afford it!

So I've got myself a few books on the MS exams and have started reading them. All seem to stress the need for hands-on excercises; and as the only Windows server we have at work is a live ISA box - I don't think tinkering with it would be smart.

So, my plan is to put in the budget for a OsX 1.5 server disk (this is the easy part as I will need to deploy these anyways soon) and dig up the Windows 2003 disk I was given at college (if I'm not mistaken, this was a 3 month trial - but that will be way more than enough for me!).

Now, my question is - at the moment I'm dual booting 10.4-client and Vista; has anyone tried dual booting Macintosh and Windows server editions? Is it even possible? Any advice on this front?

Also, I'm guessing with the release of Windows Server 2008; doing the Windows Server 2000 course is pointless - right?

Any advice would be great,
TIA,
Michele

p.s. assuming were all alive after "the storm" <cue cheesy music>

 

[Sp!ke]

Have you considered using virtual machines?

Thats where its all at right now, forget dual booting.

As for the MCSE, dont blow your money on expensive courses. Self study, Play around, Do loads of brain dumps and take the exams, one by one.

The whole lot can be done for £1000 including exam fees.

 

[whizzkid11]

Virtual Machines is the way and the future....

I live in Watford, so if you need to borrow any training materials, soft or hard copy drop me a PM.

 

[Spinal]

Thanks for that; for some stupid reason, I didn't think of that!

RE: training materials; at the moment I have quite a few both hard and softcopy now (bitme.org has quite a variety of information - seems almost feasible to learn another 4 languages )

Any VM software you'de recomend? I know Microsoft were peddling theirs for free not long ago...

Michele

 

[agatward]

Parallels works fine with the MS Server software, including both enterprise and standard editions. VmWare also works fine, but Parallels is slightly better on the Mac IMHO.

 

[Spinal]

I tend to run Vista more than OsX - I'm downloading M$ virtual PC 2007 as we speak to try it....

 

[agatward]

That will work, or you could use VmWare server, which is also a free download. I prefer VmWare but I'm a little biassed because we have a 10-node VmWare ESX infrastructure here with a SAN and lots of processing power

See attached screenshot for the ESX infrastructure... I've blurred out the hostnames and username for security reasons.

 

[Spinal]

Gruuumble... It seems like the OsX install disk doesn't like virtualPC... Apparently, VPC emulates a "normal" x86 processor and the apple disk doesn't like that (even though it really is running on a MB pro...)

I guess I'll use a spare laptop to run 10.5 client, I just don't like the idea of dragging around 2 laptops!

Michele

 

[agatward]

What's actually missing is the OS X install DVD looks for the TPM module in the real Apple hardware. There are various modified images that get round this, google is your friend