Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7

Question

Which OS would you recommend for a development machine:

• Windows Server 2008 R2

or

• Windows 7

As of now, most "web developers" probably use Windows Server 2008 because of IIS and Vista SuckingBigTime.

Does this change with Windows 7? Can we finally use a client OS on a client computer again or the time has yet to come?

Answer 1

My only beef with 2008 R2 was the lack of Bluetooth support, which meant no keyboard and mouse for me...so, I went for 7.

With it's full version of IIS, I can't beat it - totally awesome.

Running it though a MacBookPro with 4GB of RAM and a i7 920 with 12GB - both x64 (obviously) - not a single complaint!

Answer 2

Windows 7 - There are some client apps that do not run on windows 2008

Answer 3

Windows 7 is cutted Windows Server 2008 R2, so Windows Server 2008 R2 is better.

Answer 4

Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server edition, it comes with a lot of tools to manage a computer network, and as a developer you just won't use it. It's better to wait for Windows 7 in shops or directly grab it from MSDN.

Answer 5

Windows 7 :

• The Windows XP mode will certainly prove invaluable.
• I don't need IIS for .NET development : Visual Studio comes with a test server. There must exist lightweight servers for other technologies.
• If IIS was needed (for testing purposes), I would create a virtual environment with a Windows Server 200x.

Answer 6

This is not a definative list and can be expanded by other editors if so required but:

Windows 7

• Desktop OS so supports sleep/hibernate
• Windows XP Mode for XP based testing
• May have a smaller footprint than Server
• May have more GUI Bling than Server
• Has pretty animation when you boot up!
• Can run all Windows OS's that you may need to deploy your application on with 3rd-Party Hypervisor
• Native bluetooth stack

Windows 2008 R2

• Server OS may support sleep/hibernate if no Hyper-V enabled
• Ships with a free Hypervisor (HyperV)
• Maybe faster a specific tasks due to optimizations made
• May have a larger footprint than Desktop
• Can run all Windows OS's that you may need to deploy your application on
• No bluetooth capabilities

Both OS's

• Built on the same kernel
• Have the same networking stack
• Share the same GUI

Decision

• Go with what fits your needs.

Just for the record I have used Windows 2008 as my desktop of choice since the early beta's. I may have lost my sleep/hibernate but I can make my coffee while my machine boots in the morning.

Also I did not mention running other OS's in the Hypervisors but you could do that as well.

Answer 7

It is very attractive to try to run Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V as your desktop / workstation OS, because then you can host test servers on the same machine. If you are developing for an x64 server environment, this is really something that you might think you want to do.

But there is a serious problem: Hyper-V causes certain specific video driver operations in the host OS to run much much much more slowly. And Windows Server 2008 R2, with any kind of remotely modern graphics card, will attempt to use accelerated video operations for lots of simple things like scrolling, moving, and resizing windows, and those operations will be much much much slower when Hyper-V is enabled. Not just a little slower - so much slower as to be very aggravating.

This is a very serious problem when attempting to use Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V as a desktop / workstation OS. Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V enabled really should be used ONLY as a server OS where the console is used very rarely, because the console's video performance will be horrific.

This is a problem that Microsoft is aware of, but which isn't very widely known. Here's a blog entry that has some information, and which links to other sources of information: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual%5Fpc%5Fguy/archive/2009/08/21/hyper-v-versus-desktop-computing.aspx

(Windows Server 2008 (aka not R2) doesn't suffer to the same degree from this problem, because Windows Server 2008 does not use accelerated video operations for common tasks like window scrolling, moving, and resizing. The underlying problem is still present, but it doesn't get triggered as easily or as often, so it isn't as much of a hinderance.)