What version of Windows 7 for ASP.NET development on Visual Studio

Question

Hi,

I am about to upgrade my pc, and operating system at the same time. I was wondering what version of Windows 7 to get pre-installed, given that I want to do some ASP.NET development using Visual Studio.

Specifically :

• Will all versions of Windows 7 run an IIS server & be suitable for ASP.NET development ?
• Are all good for running SQL Server etc ?
• Will Windows 7 have any probs running old versions of Visual Studio (Ie. 2003 & 2005 versions).

Are there any other things I need to consider ? I'm probably going for the 32 bit version of Windows 7.

Thanks in advance,

Bazza

Answer 1

I would suggest you get the 64-bit version: there's really no reason to be running a 32-bit operating system in this day and age (unless you have some esoteric hardware that doesn't have 64-bit drivers, but that's exeedingly rare: especially on Windows 7).

I think IIS 7.5 is included in Home Premium, but I think the Professional SKU is probably the best bang-for-buck version. You don't actually need IIS for ASP.NET work anyway, the development server that's included with Visual Studio is usually the best option anyway (it doesn't require Administrator privileges to debug).

Other than that, they'll all run SQL Server fine, and I see no reason why older versions of Visual Studio won't run, either (there may be issues with UAC, but nothing too dramatic for day-to-day use).