Recently I made a move to using Windows Server 2008 on my primary development machine. The reason for this was that I needed to use full blown IIS 7 for testing of the product we are building and neither XP or Vista really cut it. I’m in the process of moving my Devs and here are the issues and solutions I have found up to now:

1. Webcam. I use a Microsoft Lifecam VX3000. This was an absolute nightmare to install, however I found this post which tells you how to make it work: The link is here

Here’s the steps:
1. Go and get Orca to edit the .msi file lifcam10.msi in the subfolder \lifecam\setup. You get orca with the PSDK. Only install the windows installer TOOLS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255905
2. Open the msi in orca, on the left hand side pane go to the table called LaunchCondition and Drop all the rows except AdminUser.
3. Save and close
4. Run setup.exe for lifecam as normal.

I love working on Server 08. It’s rocket fast and delivers all I need

It’s been kind of quiet here lately. Since leaving Dimension Data, I’ve been working on a new product called Community Engine. We’re producing a leading edge, semantic web application, with all the bells and whistles of Silverlight, Active Directory and a slew of other technologies which will produce probably the coolest web platform since apache….

We hit beta 1 last week and are currently deep in issue management driving to beta 2.

We’re running a significant web farm at a co-location facility, performing management with System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Configuration Manager and a ton of powershell and other features.

It’s a tough job; I’m managing a team of devs as lead architect, a bunch of UI designers and a full featured operations team.

I’ve got a little more time now and will post updates as I get them…