Vista or XP for Dev Machine [closed]

Question

Closed. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Stack Overflow.

Closed 5 years ago.

I am about to get a new PC from work, and it will include the option to have either Vista Business as the OS, or a downgrade to XP Pro. Aside from a tiny bit of testing, I have never used Vista, but overall I have heard many more bad reports than good regarding Vista. I don't think that hardware will be an issue (Intel Core Duo T9300, 4GB RAM, 256MB NVIDIA) in terms of performance. I am just uneasy about using Vista for my main dev system given its history, when I have the opportunity to keep on using XP.

So is there anyone here who has experience with both Vista and XP as the OS on your dev machine? If you could choose one over the other, which would you go with? I will need to use Visual Studio 2003/2005/2008, SQL Server 2005, Virtual Machines, Office, as well as lots of multi-tasking and multi-tab web browsing.

(Note: I am not interested in Microsoft-bashing. If you haven't used Vista but have just heard bad things about it then you have the same level of experience as me and you probably shouldn't be answering the question).

Edit: As I am getting this computer from work I would prefer to use one of the operating systems offered: 32 bit XP PRO or 32 bit Vista.

Answer 1

I'd say go for vista.. IIS7 is great, and the memory allocation is smarter (Vista doesn't waste RAM, it fills it with what it thinks you will use in the near future). As for the background services... you can turn them off like you could in XP.

However... if the rest of the company is on XP, I strongly suggest you install an XP virtual machine so that you can test your apps on the same platform as everyone else.

Answer 2

I can definitely tell you to steer clear of any of the lower end vista installs, because you'll lose:

• Ability to do simple backups to a disc not physically connected to your machine;
• Term serv access to your machine from any other;
• Like Fry says, you'll lose RAM. I have 4, vista only "sees" 3.

I'm talking out of the box at least. I want to go x64 but really dreading having to reinstall everything.

Answer 3

Both. I imagine you will need to test your applications in both XP and Vista..

Which one you use to actually develop on is personal-preference, and nothing more.. There's a few technical benefits to using either (for XP, there will be a bit less memory overhead of the OS. On Vista, there are lots of new features, some of which may be useful), but Visual Studio will pretty much work the same on both..

As for 64 vs 32 bit.. I would say use 64-bit - if for no reason but easily using > 3GB RAM, and that you can virtualize a 32-bit OS on 64-bit, but not vice-versa

Answer 4

if you do web, iis 7 rocks the house, being able to have multiple hosts on one box has been a life saver for me, I don't know how to go back to xp anymore.

If I had to go back, server 2003 is the least I would accept, not having a real functional web server is just not an option.

Answer 5

I'll add my voice to those saying Vista is more than adequate. I'm using a mix of several OS's and Vista Ultimate is my favorite by far. Quad core 2.5 with 4gb. Haven't upgraded to x64 yet.

Answer 6

It really depends on what sort of development you're doing. If you're doing something that requires massive amounts of memory & resources (huge datasets and lots of math), XP is the way to go. Even if you lose some of the memory by not running x64, you're still gaining about 750mb that would otherwise be chewed up by a lot of the Vista background services.

If you're doing web development, it depends on your testing environment. If you do everything locally using IIS & VS.NET, it doesn't really matter. VS has it's own webserver built in. If you have to test on IIS, it's handy to keep a virtual machine around to throw it onto a 2003 server. Keep in mind that Vista will eat up some of that memory that could be used for a virtual machine.

Given your list of requirements, I would have to recommend going with XP Pro. If you're a heavy multitasker, you need all of your resources in front of you, not being chewed up by the Aero and background searching. I used Vista for development for about 8 months, then I got a new job where I had XP. At first it was annoying, but the responsiveness of XP trumped the features of Vista, especially when there are tons of windows open and all my RAM is gone.

There is also a compatibility issue: a lot of VS.NET (especially older versions) are fairly... difficult under Vista. For instance, the publish feature for web sites can be broken under Vista. You also have to be careful about how to deal with the UAC, as some VS.NET stuff requires you to explicitly run as Administrator. I also recall having some difficulty with Microsoft Virtual Machine, but this was in 2007. I'm sure that's patched up by now.