I was wondering how many people here use Windows Server 2008 (or w2k3) as their development machine. If you do, what are the pros/cons that you’ve found? If you don’t, do you see any advantages to doing so?
I’ve read many anecdotes online stating that it was a more stable development environment than Vista SP1, and some setup tips here on SO. I just bought a new machine (2 quad core Xeons, 16GB memory) and am trying to decide if I should go with Server 2008 or Vista Ultimate x64 (I have licenses to both OSs).
We have just gone down the route of Windows Server 2008 as local development workstations, with much the same specs as yourself, and its working out perfect.
The main reason is for 64bitness and the 16GB RAM – it allows us to use HyperV to include local virtual machines running anything from Windows XP to Windows Server 2008 itself, which allows the developers to maintain their own local scratch environments without bothering the Infrastructure Administrators.
Server 2008 has less overhead than Vista, while still allowing you to do the development you need.