I'm starting to work in SharePoint 2010 more and more each day but can't let go of my 2007 install currently running on my development machine. I decided to setup some virtual machines to ease the pain of learning the new install process and early development pitfalls. 99% of our clients are currently running '07 but will soon see a vast migration to 2010 with all new projects. I decided to start with VirtualBox, it came highly recommended by my colleague Bill Vencil who has been playing with 2010 since its infancy.

The purpose of this post is to easily configure VirtualBox to aid in SharePoint 2010 Development. Knowledge of installing SharePoint 2010 should be known.

First off I installed VirtualBox, created a new Windows 2008 R2 Virtual Machine and installed SQL Server 2008, SharePoint 2010, and SharePoint Designer 2010, and Visual Studio 2010.

The first problem I ran into was accessing network resources. The VirtualBox network adapter defaults to “Internal Mode”. Opening up the VM Properties I set this to bridged mode.

Next, I wanted to utilize dual monitor’s full screen when using the virtual machine. This part was little tricky as I had read it was only supported when using a Windows XP client OS. Since my host machine is Windows 2008 Server and operates using the new RDP standards that support dual monitor remoting. If I could remote into the machine dual monitor problem solved.

Add the “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox” to the System Path.

Create a command line start.cmd file and add the following command:

vboxmanage startvm "Windows Server 2008 MOSS 2010 Development" -type vrdp

Where             "Windows Server 2008 MOSS 2010 Development" is the name of my virtual machine, you can also use the machine id.

The “type” argument set to vrdp just allows the vm to start and rum without the VirtualBox Client Viewer application running.

You must however keep the new cmd window open to keep the machine running.

Now when setting up your remote desktop connection choose display and set it to fullscreen and check the box to “Use all my monitors for the remote session”

That’s it; you now have a usable development environment utilizing all monitors.

I will be adding to this post as my use in this environment grows.