I’m using Virtual Server 2005 to setup all my labs and training sessions that I’m trying to write for SQL Server 2005.  I ran into a little problem when I tried to install Visual Studio 2005 on the virtual machines though.  Apparently, VS has a 2.2gb limit when you mount .iso files as a CD/DVD that’s not very well documented.  :)  You basically have to find out about it by using Google and reading people’s blogs.

After finding the issue, I started looking for ways around it.  I tried using the Virtual CD application by Microsoft.  It unfortunately is a piece of CRAP!!!  It locked up my laptop a couple times really nice.  When it did work, it presented an empty DVD drive instead of actually showing me the data.  I finally found a free tool called Virtual DAEMON Manager, which works great. 

I wanted to throw this out there for anyone else who likes just using the .iso files.  I’m building quite a library of them, and I don’t want to actually have to burn a physical DVD for every single one over 2.2GB.