Installing SharePoint Server 2010 on Windows 7 x64

End users are so glad to see Windows 7 released, an operating system that works so much better than Windows Vista. The developers, system administrators,  and Microsoft Certified Trainers are not too happy to find out that Microsoft doesn’t support Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in Windows 7 and even though there are ways to install it (see my blog post “How to Install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7”), you cannot install a 64-bit guest operating system in Virtual PC 2007.  Yes, although Virtual PC 2007 can be installed on a 64-bit host operating system, you cannot run any 64-bit guest operating system in Virtual PC 2007.

Unfortunately, SharePoint Server 2010 can only be installed on a 64-bit computer. Which means, if you are a developer, trainer, or a tester interested in testing SharePoint Server 2010 in a Virtual Machine, you can’t, You have to go buy a 64-bit computer just to test SharePoint Server 2010, or look for non-Microsoft solutions. For some people it may not be a big deal to look for non-Microsoft solutions but for people like me who teach, consult, support, test, and write about Microsoft technologies and products, it sure makes our jobs difficult.

Luckily, CodeProject has an interesting solution that allows running SharePoint 2010 on a Windows 7 x64 computer simply by modifying the config.xml file located at C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010. Here’s how.

– Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010
– Go to the Files folder
– Go to the Setup folder
– Open config.xml
– Add the following line before the closing </configuration> tag

<Setting Id=”AllowWindowsClientInstall” Value=”True”/>

Click here to read the details on CodeProject’s Web site.