It took me a 12 hours to setup a Windows 2003 VPC with sharepoint installed.
I was face with quite a few detours along the way.
One of the main issues I encoutered was the order in which I tried to install the pre-requisites.
Point to note : The order in which you install the pre-requisites is VERY IMPORTANT.
This was the order I took that finally worked.
- Install Windows 2003 Server
- Install Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 2
- Install Application Server with IIS, ASP.net, Email Server
- Install ASP.NET framework Version 2.0
- Install ASP.NET framework Version 3.5
- Install Sharepoint
Please try out this order to avoid painfull time wasting detours
So with my sharepoint server finally up. I navigated to http://localhost:80/ using firefox
This translates into my computer at port 80.
I saw my sharepoint landing page.
Next, i thought to try my hands on deploying a ready made sharepoint webpart. To do this I went to amrein.com
This site has tonns of web parts available for download. Being an idiot for holiday seasons, I downloaded the Merry Christmas web part and followed the instructions there.
Eureka. It worked nicely! Haha.
Next thing I should do it perhaps to write my own. 