Clever Geek Handbook

Best Virtual Development Platform for .NET 3.5 Development

I basically succumbed to the fact that if you are a hardcore computer user, you will have to remodel your computer every few months because something happened. Because of this, I bought image processing software and then actually got the renderings. I am now ready to completely move my development environment to a virtual machine so that I can test sites in IIS as if I were on the dev network (and easily back up those images).

The question is, what's the best virtual development platform for a 4GB laptop? Virtual Business Vista with 3GB of RAM, Windows XP sp3 with 3GB of RAM, or Windows Server 2003 with 3GB of RAM.

The tools I will need to install:

* sql server 2005 dev edition
* vs 2008 sp1
* silverlight tools
* and a few other smaller testing tools

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I've tried the following combinations:

  • Windows XP SP3 on Virtual Server 2005 R2
  • Windows Vista Business x64 on Virtual Server 2005 R2
  • Windows XP on Virtual PC 2007
  • Windows 2003 on Virtual Server 2005 R2
  • Windows XP on VMWare Fusion


and Virtual Server installations, either local or hosted on the server, and they all work fine and have the same speed.

The VMWare Fusion virtual machine running OS X (pants place) is significantly faster than others. I haven't tested VMWare on Windows to see if it's VMWare or hardware, but it's worth looking at.

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Server 2008 converted to workstation. Nothing compares IMO, I have downloaded 3 different OSes in the last 3 months and I am configured on Server 2008.



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I think the biggest question (from my point of view) is whether you will be doing development (like SharePoint) that requires a server platform. If you expect a lot of SharePoint to be built on SharePoint Server (or perhaps Exchange or BizTalk, or another product that requires development on a server platform), go to Windows Server 2003. If not, then I would go for XP, although Vista it's not a bad development platform.

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I personally prefer developing on a server platform - however, this opinion may change if I develop any WinForms applications, as this will more correctly represent the OS family to the target audience.

I noticed a slight performance degradation from Server 2003 to Server 2008, which I didn't expect, but it could be more from doing an in-place upgrade instead of starting clean.

From the parameters you gave, I will personally go with W2k3. You can actually trim your server OS to run fast, especially if you don't have or get rid of MS "eye candy".

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