I am building a DEV image and am currently planning to use Windows XP Pro x64 as my O/S. Is there any reason to use a Server O/S as a development operating system or is XP the best choice right now?
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I am building a DEV image and am currently planning to use Windows XP Pro x64 as my O/S. Is there any reason to use a Server O/S as a development operating system or is XP the best choice right now?
XP only allows you to host one web site in IIS. Very annoying. I’d recommend windows server 2003, 2008 or windows 7.
Its good to use a server edition as its closer to your live environment. Its good to use 2008/Win7/Vista as they have IIS7. Its good to use Win7 as its better than the others as an OS.
The workstation operating systems (XP, Vista, Win7) have hard-coded limits on simultaneous threads/connections which mean you can’t load test properly locally. This is less a problem on IIS7 boxes as they queue requests rather than failing them.
64 bit OSes can be a little quirky – e.g. I couldn’t edit my hosts file with notepad as its stored in a 32 bit directory and notepad is 64bit. I had to google and find a guide to fix this bug. Other issues may arise if you go 64bit, but the increased memory capability is attractive.
You should be able to decide based on these factors.