Get an entire Lync "Data Center in a Box" Hyper-V VHD Set - We're talking five server VHD's with everything you need to play with that Lync has to offer...

Microsoft Downloads - VHD Test Drive - Lync Server 2010 VHD

"This download comes as a pre-configured set of VHD's. This download enables you to fully evaluate Microsoft Lync Server 2010.

...

Evaluate Microsoft's Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution today!

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 combined with Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1 Unified Messaging and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 delivers a fresh, intuitive user experience that brings together the different ways people communicate and collaborate in a single user interface. This unified experience facilitates rapid user adoption, while the ability to support a full range of communications from a single platform reduces both capital and operational costs.

Download this fully configured virtual machine set of the latest release to evaluate Microsoft Lync Server 2010, and discover the full power of the Microsoft Business Productivity Platform. This VHD set enables real-time communications and collaboration using presence, instant messaging, enterprise voice and video, conferencing and application sharing, as well as features like Unified Messaging and Skill Search powered by Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Note:
1. This trial software is intended for evaluation purposes only or proof of concept.
2. There is no product support for this trial...."

That's kind of cool. You get an entire completely configured, server set, from Domain Controller, Exchange, SharePoint and Lync servers.  Now all you need is to download, and put on your Hyper-V server of choice.

Downloading is one  issue though, there are 42 downloads required... Yeah, 42. That's a lot of download button clicking.

So...

Here's the direct download file URLs for your downloader of choice;

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_DC.part01.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_DC.part02.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_DC.part03.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_DC.part04.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_DC.part05.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_DC.Setup.exe
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.part01.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.part02.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.part03.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.part04.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.part05.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.part06.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_EXUM.Setup.exe
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part01.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part02.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part03.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part04.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part05.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part06.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part07.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part08.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.part09.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCQMS.Setup.exe
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part01.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part02.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part03.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part04.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part05.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part06.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part07.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.part08.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_LYNCSE.Setup.exe
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part01.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part02.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part03.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part04.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part05.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part06.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part07.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.part08.rar
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/0/F/D0FD73BA-1F38-4EFC-8062-EDB4A9DE0D16/LYNC2010VHD_SPS2010.Setup.exe

 

How did I build this list? Well I built and showed it off here on way, May 2011 VS/TFS 2010 VHD update - If you're playing with TFS, Project Templates, VS 2010, etc., etc., these VHD's are hard to beat... , but since then Microsoft has changed the markup of their Download Center pages. The good news is that it's even easier to parse now... :)

 

Public Class MicrosoftDownloadParser
  Public Function Parse(Url As String) As String
    Dim htmWeb As New HtmlAgilityPack.HtmlWeb

    Dim htmDoc As HtmlAgilityPack.HtmlDocument = htmWeb.Load(Url)

    Dim links As HtmlAgilityPack.HtmlNodeCollection = htmDoc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//a[@class='download']")

    Dim ls = New StringBuilder

    For Each link As HtmlAgilityPack.HtmlNode In links
      Dim title = link.Attributes("bi:fileurl").Value
      ls.AppendLine(title)

    Next

    Return ls.ToString

  End Function
End Class

Yep, that's all it takes to parse out the direct download links from the new/updated Microsoft Download Center. And this code is even longer than it could be. I could have probably gotten all the data I needed in one single call, but hey, it works... ;)

What I need to do is slap this into a WLW plugin. LOL