In a great convergence of events, my new Dell E521 showed up today, and my Beta 2 discs showed up in the mail. I ordered the E521 without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor, and just planned on borrowing these from my desktop.
I hit a snag because although I have two keyboards on the desktop, one has a PS/2 connector, and the other is Bluetooth. I went to plug in the PS/2 keyboard and found that there is no PS/2 connectors on the new E521.
On a whim, I figured I’d try throwing the WHS install DVD into the machine and to see if there was some way to bootstrap the install. My router doesn’t show the machine getting a DHCP address, and the Connector install can’t find the server either, so I think I’m out of luck on that angle.
(It would be a great feature if the DVD would boot a basic remote desktop that you could hit, or if it would start something that the Connector could hook up to in order to do an install without KVM.)
So, the Beta experience is on hold until I can pick up a cheap USB keyboard.
One Man Shouting 