For my side job as programmer, I need Windows. It will be installed in VMWare Fusion. I will be writnig mostly C-code for Matlab-Mex-files, some DSP-development, some easy command-line tools in C and C++ for a tutorial and hopefully some easy GUIs using Visual Studio. I will be using VisualDSP++, Bloodshed Dev-Cpp, the Matlab mex-compiler and Visual Studio.
The virtual machine will mainly have to run on a MacBook 2,1 GHz / 4 Gb.
Now here are my questions:
- should I use Vista or XP? I like the first better, but worry about the performance, especially using Visual Studio.
- should I use Visual Studio 2008 Pro or Express? I wouldn’t want to waste memory for features I don’t use. (== is there useful stuff in the pro version for GUI development?)
Thanks for your opinions!
If you are really worried about performance you could dual boot with boot camp. In addition to that I believe that Parallels has bootcamp support, so you can even virtualise your Windows partition.
Having said that if you are going to virtualise I would recommend that you use XP, purely because you can’t take advantage of graphics hardware for all the flashy effects in vista. If you do choose vista I would recommend that you turn aero off.
As for the version of visual studio 2008, you should find out what you need it for (you indicated that you already use dev-c++) and pick the version that supports all of your required features. While I’m at it I will also suggest you check out eclipse and the CDT if you are sussing out new IDEs.
Just as a final tip, if you want to utilise the full 4Gb of ram, you will need a 64bit OS.
Good Luck.