VS2010 Developer Image

Question

I am about to create a new developer PC image for developing WPF applications using VS2010, WCF, SQL2008 and SharePoint2010.

What OS should I opt for? Windows 7? Windows Server 2008 R2?

I'd have thought Windows 7 to make sure that I have a similar experience during development as an end user, however I can't install SharePoint on a client OS and so thought about Windows Server 2008 R2 to help with the SharePoint development process.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I'd recommend Win 7, because your operating system is developed for interaction not serving. There is lots of things in a server OS that you don't need.

However if you are in a VM environment I would recommend that you add a VM for a server with the appropriate software for them to play with (Sharepoint, SQL etc.) so that their dev environment not slowed down by the server's they need to fire up for development.