Creating the Ultimate Demo Laptop for Showcasing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with SharePoint 2010

Mark Smith, 07 November 2010

I have been using an HP EliteBook 2740P with a Solid State Drive for the last few months and tried to set it up to effectively demo Dynamics CRM 2011.

The Specifications are as follows:

• Processor: Intel® Core ™ i7 CPU M620 @ 2.67GHz
• Installed RAM: 8.00 GB 97.80 GB usable)
• HDD: 146 GB Solid State Drive

Full Spec

I was at the xRM/ CRM User Group doing the first-look demo for about 40 – 50 people and the machine was less than desirable to crate the WOW factor I was looking for.

I was using Virtual Box and I have built the image for demo about 4 times to get the best performance out of it based on the hardware.  I had decided not to use Hyper-V as I was the using the machine the rest of the time as my main working PC and wanted to use Windows 7 rather than Server 2008 R2.  (I had tried that but had issues with getting suitable drives for network and graphics from the HP website) I had set it up as a duel boot.

This led me to bite the bullet and invest in some new hardware. So here are the specs of the new machine:

HP 8540w i7-840QM 8GB 500 15.6 Dreamcolour VPN: XW005PA (Note the processor is 4 core but with 8 threads) Full Specs

But this machine with all its goodness was still less than what I was looking for OOB.  So I ordered the following to ship with the order:

• 2x 4GB 1066MHz Module for HP/Compaq (there are 2 spare RAM slots so that brings total RAM to 16 GB…..YUM)
• 160GB Solid State DRV X25-M 2.5 SSD from Intel (I will use this to store my DEMO images Expensive but worth it)
• Upgrade Bay 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive (This allows me to remove the Blue Ray player and replace it with another hard driver, the bummer was I did not need the 500GB hard drive just the enclosure as I will be using the Solid State instead, but they do not sell separately)

So now it is time to plug in the new parts and build a new DEMO machine.  I am confident that the Microsoft Dev. team will provide DEMO Hyper-V images in the coming months but I need to get going now.  So the plan is as follows:

1. Install Microsoft Server 2008 R2 (install all updates drivers etc.)
   a. Set up Hyper-V
2. Create a Virtual Image 1 with:
   a. Server 2008 R2
   b. SQL 2008
   c. CRM 2011 Beta
3. Create Virtual Image 2 with:
   a. SharePoint 2010 (I will only use this when I DEMO the integration between SharePoint 2010 and Dynamics CRM 2011 (A perfect match for any forward thinking organisation)
4. Create Virtual Image 3 with: (this will be used to DEMO CRM 2011 installed on the machine)
   a. Windows 7
   b. Office 2010
   c. Outlook CRM 2011 Client
5. Create Virtual Image 4 with: (this will be used to DEMO CRM 2011 online)
   a. Windows 7
   b. Office 2010
   c. Outlook CRM 2011 Client

Don’t worry I will be creating backups all the way through so that when CRM 2011 is officially released I can do clean installs of CRM 2011 and the Outlook CRM clients.

I will post back here when it is all setup and I have done my first successful demo.  If you have any advice for me, please comment below.  If you are in New Zealand and you want a DEMO of Dynamics CRM 2011 and how it can help to improve the productivity in your business you know who to call…..