Microsoft has made available for download the SQL Server DENALI CTP3 Demo VHD several weeks ago at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27253. The SQL Server DENALI CTP3 Demo VHD is a fully configured HyperV image of SQL Server Denali CTP3 and SharePoint 2010 good for 180 days. The following software is configured on the virtual machine:
- SQL Server "Denali" CTP3
- SharePoint 2010
- Office 2010
You may want to download this pre-built image to test and play with all the new features available in SQL Server Denali CTP3 and SharePoint 2010 without going through the hassle of building the environment yourself.
The vhd file has been broken down into 36 compressed (RAR) files of 700MB each. You can avoid the pain of downloading each file one by one using a download manager such as the Download Accelerator Plus (DAP).
DAP is my favorite download manager for 3 simple reasons:
- It’s free
- It’s fast
- The Download al with DAP option
For those of you not familiar with DAP, you can download it for free at http://www.speedbit.com. After downloading and installing DAP, you will notice that one of the options now available when you right-click on a webpage is the “Download all with DAP” as seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Download all with DAP option
By default, it will display a list of all downloadable items from the webpage. To filter the file types to download, click on the More button. An additional section displays at the bottom with a button to Filter. Click on the Filter button, and check Custom. Type RAR EXE with a single space in between the two words as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Filter option
Click OK. Only the downloadable items with extension RAR and EXE are selected and ready for download. To start downloading click on the Download Now button. By default only 4 items will download in parallel, the rest will be queued and start downloading when one of the first 4 items complete as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. DAP queue
