My good mate Dave, just sent me an email saying that the System Center Essentials 2007 VHD is now available from Microsoft Downloads.  A snippet from the page is below:

System Center Essentials 2007 is a new management solution specifically designed for IT professionals working in midsize businesses who often face IT challenges similar to those of larger enterprises—troubleshooting user problems, automating management tasks, managing multiple systems, and diagnosing and resolving IT problems. And when you download the 90-day trial software, you’re automatically registered to receive valuable resources delivered at strategic intervals throughout the software evaluation period.

This VHD is pre-configured to use 10GB of hard disk space and 512MB of memory.  It is a 5 part SFX download totalling 3.2 Gb MB

I’m just downloading it now, so when I find out what the password is I’ll let you know :)