Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Training Kit Now available for Download

SQL Server 2012, codenamed "Denali", is round the bend, and in a bid to get developers excited and prepared for its release, the product group has released the SQL Server 2012 Training Kit, which is available for download here.  Here is the overview provided by the product team on the contents of the training kit.

"The SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit includes technical content including labs, demos and presentations designed to help you learn how to develop SQL Server 2012 database and BI solutions. New and updated content will be released
periodically and can be downloaded on-demand using the Web Installer Preview."

Since this is distributed as a web installer (which means there's currently no complete offline installer),  I'll quickly walk through the process of getting this down to your machines:

  • Proceed to the Microsoft Download Center to grab the Web installer

  • Start the web Installer and make your choices on the menu of items of what to install or not install, installing all the training kit items, excluding dependencies, will set your hard drive back approximately 200MB, with dependencies, including SQL Server Denali, you may be looking at approximately 4GB   

       
     

  • Go over the Install and Download summary, and be sure to go over the content license agreement and consent to it by checking the "I agree... " box and click the Next button   

  • On the Options page of the installation wizard, choose a suitable download and install location on your hard drive (make sure there's enough disk space to cater for the installation) and click the Next button   

  • On the Dependencies tab, select the dependencies you'd like to install and click the Next button, please be aware that you may be redirected to other locations such as Codeplex, and also that installation of optional dependencies may be time- and bandwidth-intensive. In my case, I chose to skip all (optional) dependencies, as in the screenshot below 

  • Clicking the Next button on the Dependencies page starts the download and installation process of the Training Kit's contents. At this point, you just need to sit back, relax and take some tea while the content's being positioned on your hard drive  :-)

  • Installation complete! Time to explore the shiny new developer training kit! There's also a final screen that shows the installation summary, giving a quick snapshot of what was deployed on your hard drive.

And so, there you have it. Get the training kit's web installer here and start learning about SQL Server 2012 (codenamed "Denali") today!