I use Windows 2008 Server as a workstation. I find that certain things actually work better (like Sleep Mode, for instance, which is weird because servers shouldn't need to sleep, but Vista would often not go to sleep and drain my battery the entire couple of hours that it continued to run in my computer bag, and Windows Server 2008 has never done that.... but I digress).
However, when the new Zune 3.0 software was released today, I found, like many others, that the software explicitly listed three operating systems that were supported, and Server 2008 was unfortunately not one of them. The install refused to continue.
While experimenting, I found a way to install the Zune 3.0 software manually. It appears to be fully functional on my machine, but I assume no responsibility and will provide no support if you decide to follow these instructions on your own machine.
First, I noticed that the setup bootstrap (zunesetuppkg-x86.exe) says where it's extracting its files to:
(This was weird to me, since the E: drive on my machine is an external USB hard drive...)
Next, I opened that directory in Explorer. There, I found a "packages" directory:
And inside of there, I found a MSI file called Zune-x86.msi:
Ok, learn from my trial-and-error here: uninstall any previous version of the Zune software, because this MSI will not do it for you, and will not install if a previous version exists. Other than that, I just double-clicked on the MSI, and a minute later, I had the 3.0 software on my machine!
Note that I am currently behind a ISA Server proxy/firewall that requires authentication with Active Directory. Therefore, in order to download the firmware update, I had to change my UseLmCompat to "0" per this blog post:
http://jasonfollas.com/blog/archive/2007/11/13/how-to-get-the-zune-2.2-firmware-when-your-corporate.aspx