Operating System and H/W for new Dev Workstation

[Arsen V.]

Hi,

What's the best OS to use on a Development Workstation?

The dev environment includes projects in:

VB 6.0, C++ (Visual Studio 6)
ASP 3.0
..NET 1.0 (Visual Studio 2002)
..NET 2.0 (Visual Studio 2005)

Options considered:

Windows 2000 Professional SP4
Windows XP Professional SP2
Windows 2003 Server Standard (MSDN license)

Any hardware suggestions?

Thanks,
-AV

 

[Steven Nagy]

I think using a server OS such as Win2003 is overkill for a development
machine.
Too many extra services running that you don't need.
Win 2K seems a little too old to be using just as a rule.

I've always used XP Pro. You need SP2 if you want to install Framework
3.0
SP2 is pretty standard now anyway.

I'm more interested to know if anyone is using Vista for dev?

You want something grunty from your hardware for VS2005.
At least 512mb ram (its too cheap now days anyway) and P4 minimum.

Here's my dev machine setup:
Pentium D 3.2Ghz
2Gb 667 DDR paired ram (2x1Gb)
SATA hard drives
Some crappy 128mb vid card, all it needs
Dvico Digital Tuner (so you can watch TV at the same time!)

Small projects build instantaneously, large projects are standard build
time.

I'd like to know if anyone has found performance bonuses in the Pentium
D (dual cores) in development environments?

 

[Michael Nemtsev]

Hello Arsen V.,

We use the same devOS that is on the production servers - Windows 2003 + SPs.
The idea is to have the same environment to be sure that OS differences isn't
the reason for bugs.

A> Hi,
A>
A> What's the best OS to use on a Development Workstation?
A>
A> The dev environment includes projects in:
A>
A> VB 6.0, C++ (Visual Studio 6)
A> ASP 3.0
A> .NET 1.0 (Visual Studio 2002)
A> .NET 2.0 (Visual Studio 2005)
A> Options considered:
A>
A> Windows 2000 Professional SP4
A> Windows XP Professional SP2
A> Windows 2003 Server Standard (MSDN license)
A> Any hardware suggestions?
A>
A> Thanks,
A> -AV
---
WBR,
Michael Nemtsev :: blog: http://spaces.msn.com/laflour

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not
cease to be insipid." (c) Friedrich Nietzsche