Recommended OS for Visual Studio 2008

asp.netoperating systemvisual-studio-2008

Which Operating System would you recommend when working with Visual Studio 2008 and it's asp.net framework? I will only use it for Web-developing and Visual Studio is the only thing I need on it.

I do all my programming on a 2Ghz laptop with 2GB memory. Should I stick with XP? Windows Server 2008/2005 or perhaps Vista? Should I use a 64bit version?

Money is not an issue.

Best Answer

I would choose my desktop OS depending on my server OS, in order to have the same version of IIS. If the server uses 2003, you may choose XP Windows XP x64. If it uses 2008, you should choose Vista.

Even if your server runs 2003 you may choose Vista to learn the new features of IIS 7 and thus be prepared the day you choose to upgrade to 2008.

I really see no reason to run 32 bit, unless you plan to use some component that don't support 64 bit (such as WSE 2.0).

So, Vista 64 bit is probably the best choice or XP Windows XP x64 if you run Windows server 2003 and want to play safe.

Btw, if you like beta software, you may use Windows 7 Beta. I am currently running that in combination with VS2008 and have very few issues.

EDIT: Windows XP 32 Bit is not recommended since it uses IIS 5.1. The 64 bit version uses IIS 6.0 and is therefore the only recommended version of XP.

Furthermore, all the mentioned configurations should work fine with 2 GB of memory (including Vista and 7). However, if you plan to work with very large solutions and several instances of visual studio, memory consuming add-ins such as Resharper or your application in itself will be very memory consuming, an upgrade to 4 GB should be considered.

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