What do I lose developing .NET on Vista Home Premium

Question

I have recently purchased a laptop to do some offsite development, as well some of my own work during commuting.

I am used to developing on XP, but the laptop was bundled with a version of Vista Home Premium (I had no say in this unfortunately). I tried to install XP on it, but it failed as the XP install doesn't come with SATA drivers.

I am aware you can create a 'slipstreamed' version of the XP Setup with nlite, and will probably do so, though from my research this has been problematic for many people, missing drivers, blue screening etc.

I am trying to decide whether or not to pursue this option, or just accept my Vista install, so I want to understand what I will lose in way of development, such as IIS restrictions (is Cassini an acceptable substitue?). What versions of SQL, if any would I be restricted to. What else should I be aware of in terms of .NET development, or, for what I need, is Home Premium not a valid option?

EDIT

To answer why I want to go back to XP installation, I guess negative Vista press, and my innate snobbery against the word 'Home' in the name of my operating system :).

I am more than happy to stay on it, though, if I am not hobbled as a developer, as I would much rather get cracking with what I've got than suffer the pain of trying to hack a working XP out of a currently good system.

Thanks for your answers, and more than happy to hear more

Answer 1

I develop on this operating system and have had a total of zero problems with a any piece of the .NET stack, Visual Studio, MS Sql 2005/2008 and intermixing with pieces of the LAMP stack for PHP/Apache/MySql work.

The only gripe is that I'm running IIS7 and there are certain IIS6 HTTP post weirdness I've run into with Ajax and the [WebMethod] technique with a WebForms app. All it took was some research and a web.config change though.

Answer 2

It's a perfect development platform. It has IIS. You can setup SQL Server 2005 SP2 and SQL Server 2008 without any problems. I don't see how it's not better than XP.

Answer 3

I fail to see why you fear leaving XP. Vista (1 home prem, 1 ultimate), since SP1, has been far better. I develop both at work and home on Vista x64 machines and recently started on win7. I have yet to have any trouble with VS, Adobe cs3/cs4, MsSQL, php, MySQL and all the rest.

One thing I do not believe you can go back to IIS6 or IE6 on vista.

Answer 4

There's no reseaon not just to stick with Vista. part of the Vista GUI is created using the .NET framwork so the integration with .NET (if there's any differance at all) is to the advantage of the Vista user. Most of the negative press has been related to drivers not working probably under Vista. Not surprisingly since they basically have reworked the driver strategy.

I've been working on XP and Vista in parallel practically since Vista was released with no decernable differance to the experience and after having resolved the drive problems I had in the begining I preferre Vista.

Answer 5

Assuming you're a .NET 2.0 (or above) developer I don't think you lose anything working on Vista Home Premium.

Install Visual Studio 2005 (or above) and you're good to go. If you're a web developer Cassini should be fine, but if you really need IIS it can be installed on Home Premium according to this TechNet article:

"You can install IIS 7 on Windows Vista® Home Premium, Windows Vista® Business, Windows Vista® Ultimate, or Windows Server® 2008"

I'd also like to throw props out for the Web Platform Installer. It makes it super easy to set up your machine for developing various applications (including PHP based applications).

Yes, Vista has a stigma attached to it (unfairly in my opinion, but I'm biased) but you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand before giving it a crack. Some things will be different (UAC, the interface, etc.) but you can turn tweak and turn things off as needed to get comfortable in your new environment.

Answer 6

I have to agree with the sentiment, you absolutely do not loose anyhting going with Vista, quite the opposite in my own opinion.

Not sure what the negative press with Vista is about, I think the shift in workflow is what people is having issues with, although pre sp1 there were some issues like copying files through network took forever but those issues have been resolved a long time ago.

Also IIS7 in Vista is a lot less limiting than IIS5 (6 in XP x64) was in XP, for example you can have multiple websites and you also get the integrated pipeline.

It's a more modern system in so many ways, it's quite sad it hasn't been more widely adopted (30% the last time I looked) but I suspect the economy also has something to do with that adoption ratio.

Answer 7

I've always used Vista for .NET dev since Vista was in beta, and I have never had any issues. Now I have upgraded to Windows 7 and wow Win7 kicks ass. If you are going to set up a new environment, skip Vista and jump right in to Win7. Youll be happy.

Answer 8

Developing in Vista may not be a bad thing. It is where Microsoft is heading in terms of security. Win 7 is really Vista with the annoying things removed. Thing of it was Vista II, IIS 7 has some different lockdowns, so there will be some headaches there potentially. Otherwise you lose nothing in the vista/Win 7 environment.

Answer 9

I have found one minor problem with Home Premium that I haven't found a solution for. It doesn't seem to have the UI for putting users into groups, and creating groups. I'm trying to work with SQL Server Reporting Services, and it seems to need its initial admin user to be in the "BUILTIN\Administrators" group. Even though I'm an administrative user, I'm not seen as being in that group.

I may try to write a program to make up for the lack of the UI, but there's no "Users and Groups" plug-in as far as I can see.

Answer 10

Actually I think you lose a lot if continuing on XP.

Vista introduces features such as UAC that also go into Windows 7. If you remain on XP, then you will be late.

At this moment, if you really anticipate Windows 7 release, I suggest you use Windows 7 RC which is publicly available. I have been using that for weeks, and really enjoy the fun.

Answer 11

How much RAM have you got? You could always run XP (or your choice) in a virtual machine - VMware Player if free (you can create machine via EasyVMX). Then you can take your development machine with you wherever you go (even on a (large) memory stick, if you want).

This approach also lets you develop an the whole range of platforms - need to develop something on Win2003 Server? no problem. But an MSDN subscription (for the OS licenses) would help ;-p