[dba-VB] What OS for .Net dev

You need to be sure whatever you build will install properly in Vista.
We ran into problems because we had always written to the Local Machine
in the registry.  Vista pretends to go along with that but it actually
writes to the current user, which can cause a lot of confusion when
licenses are applied.  We're trying to find a way to use an encrypted
file instead to handle licensing now.

Charlotte Foust 

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 2:19 PM
To: VBA
Subject: [dba-VB] What OS for .Net dev

I am going to do a virtual machine to do my development on.  This allows
me to move it around on an external disk between host machines.

My question is what OS would you suggest for the VM for development in
.Net?  My available choices are XP, 2003 and Vista (and maybe Server
2008).

Also how much disk space for the virtual hard disk?

Even though I have been using Vista on my main development laptop for a
couple of years, I still hate it, so that would not be my first choice.

Windows 2003 is a very stable environment but it is also a server OS and
I have run into a lot of applications, PerfectDisk for example, which
refuse to run on a server OS OR want you to pay hundreds of dollars for
something that costs $50 for XP.

Which leaves me with XP which is getting long in the tooth.

Any yes, I have a copy of Server 2008 which I assume would have the same
"is a server OS" issues that 2003 brings with it.

Any thoughts on this?

BTW I think I am going to bring up a server machine (real hardware) to
run the Server 2008 license I have.

-