Recently, I have just setup my new company laptop to run Windows 2008 as a desktop and reinstalling SharePoint in Hyper-V.  Upon completion of the installation and while accessing the Shared Services Provider, I was prompted continuously with authentication prompt, even I have entered the correct user and password.  Subsequently, I am just presented with a blank page.

There is a KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861 that describes the same scenario.

This is more of a note to myself to remember to set the DisableLoopbackCheck in the registry:

Steps:

1. Open your registry editor by going to Start –> Run and enter regedit and click OK.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa in the registry editor.
3. Right-click Lsa, click on New and select DWORD value.
4. Enter DisableLoopbackCheck and press Enter.
5. Right-click DisableloopbackCheck and select Modify.
6. In the Value data box, enter 1 and click OK.
7. Restart your server.

I would recommend that you do this on at least the Central Administration server, if not all WFE servers.

Microsoft has expanded its Window Server family with Windows 2008 Server foundation, which is mainly targetted at small businesses with 15 or fewer employees.  And of course it can grow with the business by providing the ability to upgrade to other editions of Windows Server.  Applications that have been certified for Windows Server 2008 can be deployed on Windows 2008 Server Foundation as well.

Windows 2008 Server Foundation can be deployed for the following uses:

• Core Infrastructure
• Active Directory
• Terminal Services
• Applications

More details could be found on Windows 2008 Server Foundation Home