New CRM 4 Virtual Machine Available

Microsoft just posted a new demonstration virtual machine to the PartnerSource portal.  This new Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Virtual Machine 2009 will replace the current one that is set to expire soon.  This new image has a lot of great improvements – top of my list is that it has Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on it!  It also has all the CRM 4 Accelerators, dashboards and other good stuff on it.

Currently, as far as I can tell you can only download the image from PartnerSource and there’s not a replacement in the public Microsoft download section yet.  Let’s hope Microsoft continues to support getting broad access to kick the tires on CRM and updates the public download.

The new VM is time bombed for August 2010.

Did you know about VM Express?  Apparently I didn’t , that is I have heard people talk about it, but just assumed they were using some fancy word for File downloads.  It turns out it’s really a Virtual Machine Demonstration Toolkit.  Anyway, apparently it’s this thing you can “Order” for a few $ (Yeah I don’t get that part) from the partner site that will make managing VM downloads etc easier.  Menno has a good blog post here that try’s to explain the “Magic”.  It also includes the “Magic” instructions needed to navigate the ordering process which without trust me you will NEVER find it on the site!  If your wanting to know if it’s any good – your guess is as good as mine, I placed my order and waiting for my package to arrive!

I did not wait however for it to arrive to download the new VM!