The new release of OpenERP 7.0 is a major upgrade and has many new innovative features worth reviewing. To quickly step-up your own demo instance you can install a standalone windows version for testing.

For a Windows implementation, this should be quite straight forward, albeit the Windows versions of openERP are not yet as stable as the Linux versions, so don't be too surprised if you experience some implementation problems like I did.

  1.  Step1 -Download the latest .exe release Download the latest OpenERP version from OpenERP's servers (at time of writing version 7.0 was the latest version. Check the dates when downloading). http://nightly.openerp.com/7.0/nightly/exe/openerp-allinone-setup-7.0-latest.exe The windows installation does not seem as stable as the Linux versions so you may want to check the Trunk versions too. 
  2. Step 2 - Clean-up Ensure to de-install any older version of OpenERP on your PC. this also goes for the database postgreSQL. If you have postgreSQL install for other applications then this will cause problems. 
  3. Step 3 - Run the .exe As soon as the download completes run the .exe as adminstrator on your PC. You'll see the following screens: Prompt for file location. Just Press install. 
    4.  
    This confirms that the installer will install the openerp server and postgresql. Just press 'Next'. If the postgresql is greyed-out then you already have postgresql installed. This will cause installation problems and you should abort and consider installing on a different PC that does not have postgresql already installed. Or, if you don't need to the postgresql database then un-install that first from start | control panel | Program and Features | Find postgresql in the list and de-install. Restart the installation of OpenERP.

    Remember the database admin user name and password. For demo use don't change anything - just press 'Next'' otherwise you may have connection problems later.

    The status of the installation is displayed.... When finished press 'Next'

    Select 'Start OpenERP'and press 'Finish'

    A browser will open and connect to the openerp webserver running on port 8069.

    It will direct you directly to the database manager screen where you need to create your first instance of OpenERP Leave the Master password as admin for the 1st database - otherwise openerp has problems connecting to the database (you can change this later). Enter an instant name, such as Sandbox or Demo1. Enter a simple username and password such as 'admin' . Select 'Load Demonstration Data'. This loads demo data when installing modules during later steps. It's highly recommend to do this, so you can see how the fields have been used, and you'll also see various products and customers already created so you it's ready-to-run as a demo. In later steps you can create as many additional OpenERP instances as you like using the same PostgreSQL either with or without demonstration data.

  4.  Step 4. Module Installation In the next step you'l need to install some modules to test. If you see all module then the installation is complete.