John; There should never be a need to create a SCEP External Source Template since that Template will ALWAYS be predefined as part of the MSP 4.0 Server install.  In general, the creation of External Source Templates in MSP 4.0 is not documented or supported and should be avoided.  So, that step of the document need not be done.  As I recall, the wording in Steve's document says this may not be required and, in fact, it is not required. Allan

Although loading up a VM instance to run this would have worked fine, my example does not run VM. The Dell 620 platform used is a 32 bit machine with 3 GB memory, and it runs just fine for lab and protable demo work. An estimate for the time to budget for the installation process -- Since there is a lot of time waiting for the PC to load, reboot, etc., plan on a day of on and off focused work. After you do this a few times (believe me, you will) , it may about three to four hours. Z

In my experience, you CAN run MSP 4.0, set up as documented in Steve's book, on a VM on a Windows XP laptop with 3GB of RAM, but just barely.  You need to allocate the VM at least 2GB, which leaves less than 1GB for the host OS.  This will work, although you need to be very careful what you do on the host OS while the VM is running to avoid performance issues.  Remember that MSP is NOT SUPPORTED when running in an OS that is allocated less than 2GB of RAM.  So, while it might seem to work, running with less than 2GB might run into performance or functionality issues on such a system and such issues WILL NOT be addressed. Since Windows XP can only address a maximum of 3GB, an even better experience would be achievable on 64 bit hardware with 4GB or more of RAM and running Windows 7 as the host OS.  Then, the same VM described earlier can be used, but it can then be allocated more than 2GB to increase performance.  Additionally, then the host OS can be used for other things, since as running Outlook, etc. Please also be aware that VMWare can be finicky about sharing a wireless LAN adapter between the host OS and the VM.  So, you may only be able to run this configuration on ethernet.  In situations where the only network connectivity available is wireless LAN, I have had success using an Ethernet Wifi adapter, such as the NETGEAR Model: WNCE2001-100NAS.  This allows VMWare to use the ethernet adapter (which it can share between the host OS and the VM) and still use the connectivity provided by the WLAN.

Thanks Steve for this very thorough doc.  I'm currently stuck on page 102 trying to create an external source template.  I'm getting the attached error.  Does this mean I didn't put in the correct common name for my cert request?  Any ideas?  This is on a standalone server with 8gb memory running 2008 sp2 64bit.  I've restarted ADCS and www web publishing services.

Hello, Z It is great book and amazing for Dell D620 works on this. What is VM you have used ?. How long do you take to complete setup MSP4.0 (include Server & DB) if you follow this book? (just estimated) Regards. - Jaehoon -