SharePoint 2010 Deployment Options for Developers
Well, this is a good thing. SharePoint 2010 can be installed on your workstation running Windows 7 or Vista. There are a number of requirements outlined on TechNet here.
Our sources tell us that Windows 7 is the preferred option and that the standalone and SQL Express options should be avoided.
And of course, if your programming a beta product, you might as well use a beta development suite so you’ll need Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 which is also offerred as a download even though it’s 2.1Gb or so. You can get that at MSDN here.
-robot