Here’s the hardware and software I use to record the screens and do the narration:

The server hardware

• 1x Mac Mini
  • Core 2 Duo
  • 4 GB memory (yes, I opened the case voiding the warranty)
  • 160 GB hard disk (seemed enough for my purposes)
  • Bluetooth, USB2, FireWire, 802.11G, GigE
• 1x PC keyboard
• 1x Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse
• I used Media Encoder’s input window as screen (no physical screen necessary)
• Mac OS install DVDs
• A bunch of cables

The recording equipment

• 1x HP Compaq dc7700 Ultra-slim Desktop
• 1x Epiphan DVi2USB frame grabber
• 1x mouse
• 1x keyboard
• More cable
• Windows Vista
• Windows Media Encoder
• Windows Movie Maker

BTW, I will upload the videos to TechNet Edge for streaming as soon as my account has been enabled. I tried YouTube and SoapBox but both re-encode the videos making it impossible to identify anything. Way too blurry for screencasts. For now the videos are in a public folder on SkyDrive.

Preparation is everything

Being an MSDN subscriber I downloaded the ISO image for Windows Server 2008 from MSDN and burned it on a DVD using Roxio’s Creator Basic which came with the HP desktop. Unfortunately that image did not boot properly on the Mac Mini. Took a while to find out that there’s something wrong with the way the files are augmented on the DVD.

I found a blog post that did work like a charm for me. I followed it step by step and ended up with a perfectly bootable DVD even though the post is meant to be for Vista.

The whole prep work, software installation and cutting the video (110 minutes) into more digestible pieces took about 6 hours last night. Instead of posting one large video I cut it into four more manageable pieces. The four individual videos represent the four major steps it took to install Windows Server 2008 on the Mac hardware.

The four videos are

Installing Mac OS X Leopard on the Mac Mini

I had to reinstall the Mac OS due to the fact that I screwed up the original installation the system shipped with. I did so much disk partitioning and repartitioning that the volume was in serious conditions and required reinstall. I also wanted to keep a minimal Mac OS installation on the hard drive. Just in case.

Configuring the Boot Camp partition

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