Free version of Exchange Server?

[Old Broad]

I would like to be able to practice sharing in Outlook 2003, but cannot
afford to buy Exchange server for my home use. I am upgrading skills with
Outlook and Office 2007 at home, for re-entry into job market after ten
years' absence. Is there an old or beta version of Exchange available?

 

[VanguardLH]

in message

I would like to be able to practice sharing in Outlook 2003, but
cannot
afford to buy Exchange server for my home use. I am upgrading
skills with
Outlook and Office 2007 at home, for re-entry into job market after
ten
years' absence. Is there an old or beta version of Exchange
available?

Get Virtual PC 2007. Then visit Microsoft's VHD catalog site
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738372.aspx) and get a trial
copy of Exchange to run inside a virtual machine.

 

[Old Broad]

in message



Get Virtual PC 2007. Then visit Microsoft's VHD catalog site
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738372.aspx) and get a trial
copy of Exchange to run inside a virtual machine.

Thanks for the quick suggestion. I have gotten Virtual PC, and all three versions of Exchange (didn't know if they were 3 essential components, or 3 versions of the whole program), plus a program that runs .rar files, but I can't get beyond the Virtual PC console. I want to install an operating system through my network, but the instructions I found seem incomplete. Is there a tutorial with step-by-step instructions for dummies?

 

[VanguardLH]

in message


You don't install an operating system. You don't install Exchange.
You get the .vhd file from Microsoft's VHD Catalog site. You download
and save the .vhd file in whatever path you want. When you define a
new guest VM in VPC, you point at where you saved the .vhd file. When
you download the files from the VHD catalog site, you don't need
anything to extract from the .rar files. The .exe file that you
downloaded should read from those files to extract from them. I only
saw ONE version of Exchange offered at the VHD Catalog site: 2007.

Virtual PC has their own newsgroup at microsoft.public.virtualpc.