The file sizes range from 2.5 to 3.3 GB depending on your preference between the 32-bit or 64-bit versions, so you may be downloading for quite some time.

Here are the download links:

English

Product Key: DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J

You can find the download links for other languages and version here.

System Requirements

• Windows 8 Consumer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows 7:
• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher
• To use touch, you need a tablet or monitor that supports multitouch
• To access Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768
• To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768

Now the question arises if one should use Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 for development? I would suggest Windows Server 2008 instead of Windows 7 for developer machine OS because of the following reasons:

You can download these poster from Microsoft’s website.

Upgrade planning

This model covers planning for an upgrade from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010. It includes information about the following:

Upgrade requirements: Hardware, operating system, and database
Upgrade process: specific steps to follow before, during, and after the upgrade

Download link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166301

Upgrade approaches

This model helps you understand the in-place, database migration, and hybrid approaches to upgrading from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010.

See the farm topologies before, during, and after upgrade
Compare the advantages of each type of upgrade

Download link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166302

Test your upgrade process

This model explains the methodology for testing the upgrade process before upgrading from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010.

Understand the goals for testing your upgrade process: customizations, hardware, timing, planning. See specific steps to follow for testing your upgrade process
Download link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166303

Services upgrade

This model covers upgrading services from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010.

Considerations for specific services: Personalization, Search, InfoPath Forms, Excel, Business Data Catalog, Single Sign-on
In-place upgrade with services; Single Shared Services Provider (SSP), multiple SSPs
Database attach upgrade with services
Download link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166304

*This post is based on SharePoint 2010 technical preview. Things might change with the release of final product.

If you’re dealing with people who are new to SharePoint and finding it hard to explain what it is, this video might be a savior. It also great to include in a client pitch where at times most of the business folks have no clue about SharePoint.

You need to have the latest version of Silverlight to view this video or you can choose to view it in WMV format.

SharePoint in Plain English

Next version of SharePoint will be 64-bit only is a good enough reason to use a 64-bit operating system (Windows Server 2008) for all new installation. If you plan for and implement 64-bit MOSS now, it may make your upgrade path in the future a little easier.

The 64-bit systems offer direct access to more virtual and physical memory than 32-bit systems and process more data per clock cycle, enabling more scalable, higher performing computing solutions.

The /3GB switch is not recommended for SharePoint Server running on 32-bit OS. Microsoft recommends against using the /3 GB switch because most SharePoint site traffic involves sending large amounts of data through the operating system. Therefore, leaving only 1 GB of address space for the operating system can destabilize the computer.

Additional Reads:

"64-Bit Gotchas" by John Powell states couple of important things you need to be aware of when choosing between 32-bit and 64-bit MOSS environments.

Check out the "Benefits of 64-bit Windows" whitepaper from Microsoft to know more advantages of using 64-bits Servers. 

Avoid mixing 32-bit and 64-bit servers

One should avoid to mix to 32-bit and 64-bit servers until you have any significant reason to do so. You can still mix and match 32 and 64 bit servers, but you must keep the same architecture at each tier of the farm.  For example all front end (WFE) SharePoint servers must be either 32-bit or 64-bit.  All index/search servers must be one or the other.  All database servers (if you have more than 1 in a cluster for example) must be either 32-bit or 64-bit.  But at each tier you can change architecture. For example you could have 2 front ends at 64-bit, 2 search index servers at 32-bit, and 2 database servers 32-bit.  As long as each tier is the same architecture.

Mixing 32-bit and 64-bit servers can affect load balancing. However, there is a risk that the 32-bit servers might become overloaded if the network load balancer is configured to use a less-intelligent model such as round robin.

Additionally, deploying both 32-bit and 64-bit servers increases the maintenance overhead for the farm. This is because third-party applications, custom solutions, patches, and software updates for both architectures must be tracked and managed independently.

Limit the size of content database

Microsoft recommends that content database size should not be more than 100 GB to achieve optimal performance. In case your design requires a database larger than 100 GB, you should split content from a site collection that is approaching 100 GB into a new site collection in a separate content database to avoid performance or manageability issues.

Put SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated server

As a best practice use install SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated server that is not running any other farm roles, unless you are deploying your system on a stand-alone server. You should use 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005 on a 64-bit operating system, unless you have a significant business reason not to.

Turn Off the features you don’t need

SharePoint offers many features but you don’t necessary need all for your application. Resources will be more efficiently used if you only turn on the features relevant to your application.

As with any software, some features take up more resources than others. Especially the features that rely on the Microsoft SharePoint Timer service, such as alerts and usage analysis log processing, can have more of an impact on your server performance than other features. Different features can affect server resources for different reasons, but usually performance is impacted when a feature must be run on demand when a user performs a particular action.

Use Kerberos authentication

NTLM and Kerberos are the two popular authentication mechanisms for SharePoint.

NTLM Authentication is the well-known and uses challenge-response for authentication. NTLM is easy and does not require any special configuration. As Microsoft likes to say, “It just works.”

Kerberos, on the other hand, is a more complex ticket-based authentication mechanism that authenticates the client to the server and authenticates the server to the client. While Kerberos is more secure with several other advantages though it can be a bit challenging to configure it properly.

Microsoft recommends using Kerberos authentication for farms with heavy usage as it can return authentication request results quickly. Kerberos caches information about the client after authentication and therefore it requires fewer round trips to the domain controllers in comparison to NTLM. Once a client gets a service ticket for a service from the Key Distribution Center (KDC -Domain controller on a windows network) it can reuse that ticket to authenticate with the service without having to go back to the domain controller for a new ticket. NTLM requires trips to the domain controller on every authentication request. This means that it can perform better than NTLM particularly in large farm environments.

Additional Reads:

SharePoint Joel blog post on Kerberos authentication

Configure Kerberos authentication (Office SharePoint Server) on TechNet

Check out these cool videos to for more details about SharePoint 2010:

2010 Sneak Peek Overview Video: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/Overview-Video.aspx
2010 Sneak Peek IT Pro Video: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/IT-Pro-video.aspx
2010 Sneak Peek Developer Video: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/Developer-video.aspx
2010 Sneak Peek Get Ready: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/Get_Ready.aspx

Here some key updates coming out of the technical preview:

• Office 2007 ribbon coming to SharePoint
• Better and more organised user interface
• Silverlight Web Part
• Extended support for browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari on Windows
• Business Connectivity Services (the evolution of the Business Data Catalog)
• Enhanced version of Groove dubbed as ‘SharePoint Workspace’
• Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Tools
• Language Integrated (LINQ) for SharePoint

Check KB article (971620) for more details. However the links to the download page mentioned in the article are not working and resulting in standard error page.

Thanks to Stephen Gossner for providing download location of the hotfix EXE files.

Download locations:

32-bit version:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/F/5/2F51AB71-1325-49D2-9CB9-18DEC4780E99/office2007-kb971620-fullfile-x86-glb.exe

64-bit version:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/B/B/5BBD34A9-C528-42B0-8A5F-9A8997B25C32/office2007-kb971620-fullfile-x64-glb.exe

Enjoy!

• SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
• SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
• SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.

   

SharePoint Team also shared more information about the SharePoint Server 2010 browser compatibility

• Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010
• Optimized for XHTML 1.0 compliant browsers like IE 7, IE 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems
• Increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems

   

Here are list of things to consider today to ensure a smooth transition from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010

• Use 64-bit hardware for any new deployment. Deploying 64-bit is a current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
• Upgrade to MOSS Service Pack 2 and run SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update. The Upgrade Checker will scans SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
• Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007.
• Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
• Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.

It takes the input from the XML file which can be configured to generate any number of SharePoint artifacts. For example we can configure it to create 200 sub sites, 500 lists each with 2000 items.

SPTDataPop is a community supported tool from Microsoft and available as a free download at CodePlex
http://www.codeplex.com/sptdatapop

More information
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262198.aspx

Here is the download link on Microsoft for SharePoint Designer 2007.