Windows version/edition (64 bit only)	SharePoint 2010 support
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation	No
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard	Yes
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise	Yes
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter	Yes
Windows Web Server 2008 R2	No
Windows HPC Server 2008	No
Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based systems	No
Windows Server 2008 Standard	Yes
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise	Yes
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter	Yes
Windows Web Server 2008	No
Windows Storage Server 2008	No
Windows Small Business Server 2008	Yes*
Windows Essential Business Server 2008	Yes*
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based systems	No
Windows Server 2008 Foundation	No
Windows Vista	Developer-only**
Windows 7	Developer-only**

Microsoft published model describes common ways to build and scale farm topologies by using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, including planning which servers to start services on.

You can download it as pdf, vsd or xps file.

Note that you will need to patch SQL Server with the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2005 depending on what version you will be running.  These are as follows :

• SQL Server 2005 SP2 CU3 http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806
• SQL Server 2008 SP1 CU2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970315
• WCF Hotfix for Windows (KB976462) – To be installed after the SharePoint 2010 Preparation Tool has been run which installs the core prerequisites. http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806

Note that Windows 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010 are 64 bit only

Configure surface area settings in SQL Server 2005 
      - Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, point to Configuration Tools, and then click SQL Server Surface Area Configuration.
      - In the SQL Server Surface Area Configuration dialog box, click Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections.
      - In the tree, open your instance of SQL Server, open Database Engine, and then click Remote Connections.
      - Click Local and Remote Connections, click Using both TCP/IP and named pipes, and then click OK.

Security account requirements
To install Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a server farm environment, at-least 2 accounts are required:

      - A user account that you can use to install Office SharePoint Server 2007 and run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. This account must be:
            - A domain user account.
            - A member of the Administrators group on each of your front-end servers.
            - A member of the SQL Server Logins, which grants login access to your SQL Server instance.
            - A member of the SQL Server Database Creator server role, which grants permission to create and alter databases.
            - A member of the SQL Server Security Administrators server role, which grants permission to manage server logins.
      - A unique domain user account that you can specify as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account. This user account is used to access your SharePoint configuration database. It also acts as the application pool identity for the SharePoint Central Administration application pool and it is the account under which the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service runs. The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard adds this account to the SQL Server Logins, the SQL Server Database Creator server role, and the SQL Server Security Administrators server role. It is recommended that you follow the principle of least privilege and do not make this user account a member of any particular security group on your front-end servers or your back-end servers.

Before you install and configure Office SharePoint Server 2007, make sure your servers have the recommended hardware and software. To deploy a server farm, you need at least one server computer acting as a Web server and an application server, and one server computer acting as a database server. The server computers must meet the following requirements:

Hardware requirements

Front-end Web server and application server computers: a dual-processor computer with processor clock speeds of 2.5-gigahertz (GHz) or higher and a minimum of 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. Back-end database server: a dual-processor computer with processor clock speeds of 2.0 GHz or higher and a minimum of 2 GB of RAM.

Software requirements Web and Application Server

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, or Web Edition) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0 The Web server and application server computers must be configured as Web servers running Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) in IIS 6.0 worker process isolation mode. Each of the computers must be using the NTFS file system. Windows Server 2003 includes a conversion utility (Convert.exe) that you can use to convert an existing file allocation table (FAT) volume to NTFS without losing data.

Back-End Database Server
The back-end database server computer must be running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Service Pack 3 (SP3) or later. It is assumed that you have installed and configured the database program on the back-end server computer. You do not need to set up or create specific databases for Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Office SharePoint Server 2007 Setup program will create the necessary databases when you install and configure Office SharePoint Server 2007.

If you get "Enable ASP.NET extensions" message while installing MOSS 2007, run the following command:

aspnet_regiis -iru

You will find this utility in the following folders:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727