I plan to write a series of posts while learning more on SQL Server 2012. The changes to set up as I observed while installing SQL Server 2012 RC0 are :

1 Pre requisites include Powershell 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.5
2 If you have Windows 7/Windows Server 8/Office 2010 it expects Service Pack 1 to be installed (does not even proceed until pre requisites if not).

The install is a slipstream process – by that all the necessary pre requisites are part of the media, there is no need to go to separate sites to download/install.
3 There is no reboot required upon install (I only tested it as standalone, with all other programs closed – this may not be true in a cluster install).

4 32 bit install is still supported.
5 Support for Itanium appears to have been removed.

Acknowledgement:

I was inspired to learn more and write by Aaron Bertrand’s presentation on New Features at the PASS conference 2011(http://sqlblog.com/blogs/aaron_bertrand/archive/2011/08/07/sql-server-v-next-denali-changes-to-system-objects-in-ctp3.aspx)