Which Operating System would you recommend when working with Visual Studio 2008 and it's asp.net framework? I will only use it for Web-developing and Visual Studio is the only thing I need on it.
I do all my programming on a 2Ghz laptop with 2GB memory. Should I stick with XP? Windows Server 2008/2005 or perhaps Vista? Should I use a 64bit version?
Money is not an issue.
I use VS2008 on XP with less memory without a problem. It really shouldn't matter mostly just a personal preference.
I have XP and have no reasons to complain.
Aside : "Money is not an issue" - I've always wanted to use this sentence. Not yet.
I would choose my desktop OS depending on my server OS, in order to have the same version of IIS. If the server uses 2003, you may choose XP Windows XP x64. If it uses 2008, you should choose Vista.
Even if your server runs 2003 you may choose Vista to learn the new features of IIS 7 and thus be prepared the day you choose to upgrade to 2008.
I really see no reason to run 32 bit, unless you plan to use some component that don't support 64 bit (such as WSE 2.0).
So, Vista 64 bit is probably the best choice or XP Windows XP x64 if you run Windows server 2003 and want to play safe.
Btw, if you like beta software, you may use Windows 7 Beta. I am currently running that in combination with VS2008 and have very few issues.
EDIT: Windows XP 32 Bit is not recommended since it uses IIS 5.1. The 64 bit version uses IIS 6.0 and is therefore the only recommended version of XP.
Furthermore, all the mentioned configurations should work fine with 2 GB of memory (including Vista and 7). However, if you plan to work with very large solutions and several instances of visual studio, memory consuming add-ins such as Resharper or your application in itself will be very memory consuming, an upgrade to 4 GB should be considered.
With only 2GB of memory, I'd recommend going with 32-bit XP.
While you can code on a Windows Server OS, you may find that they are tuned quite differently. For example, Server 2008 shares a lot of code with Vista, but the audio stack has a considerably higher latency than you would want on a desktop OS.
See: Larry Osterman's article Why do people think that a server SKU works well as a general purpose operating system?
I usually mirror whatever environment things will be used most in. We're pretty XPrific around here, so I've been using VS2008 there.
I've been doing all my development in Vista x64 lately and have found it to be quite usable. So that would be and is my choice.
If money isn't an object I'd really suggest sticking another 2 gigs of ram in your laptop. It shouldn't be all that expensive and the additional ram is really useful (and absolutely necessary if you're planning on doing anything like running a VM).
I run Visual Studio 2008 on a 2GHz/2GB RAM laptop with Vista Ultimate, all work PCs are 2GB RAM desktops with VS2008/Vista Business - with no issues.
I know this is about a recommended OS, but if you're after getting the best performance from Visual Studio, how about this gem, straight from ScottGu's mouth!
Tip/Trick: Hard Drive Speed and Visual Studio Performance
Scott seems to think having a fast hard-disk will considerably improve hard-disk performance, and I have to agree with him. He also gives some recommendations for memory and CPU.
I would also say that, OS-wise, Windows XP is fine, as is Vista. I run VS2005 & VS2008 on both XP and Vista (both 32-bit) and from the OS perspective, there's really no difference.
I've found 2005 and 2008 to run pretty equally with XP32 and Vista32. There may be some edge cases with Vista, but I have yet to experience them with asp.net.
HOWEVER, the 32/64 question is another one altogether: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/534941/team-is-going-from-xp32-to-xp64-for-net-development-any-gotchas