This is definitley old news, however I have using the steps outlined on this site to configure my Windows Server 2008 x64 environment to run as a workstation. It’s been over 2 months since I have been running it and it is just fantastic. Everything works beautifully.
Definitely a great resource in you want to use Windows Server 2008 on your development laptop. Recommended.
One of the pains I have with Hyper-V is that evertime I want to launch my VM, I have to open the Hyper-V Manager ( accept the UAC prompt ) and then launch my VM. I found a very nice gadget called the Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar written by Tore Lervik. It resides on the Windows Sidebar and shows the satus of all the VM’s. Also provides single click interfaces ( with any UAC prompt ) to start / stop / pause VM’s and also to open the Virtual Machine Connection for quick connection to the VM with just a double click.
For those who are wondering how to get Windows Sidebar running with Windows Server 2008, check out this article.
One of the features of Windows 2008 I really wanted to try was HyperV. It’s good, faster than Virtual Server, supports HyperVisor etc. etc. However, I have removed the Hyper V Role from my system. The reason being loss of sleep. I just can’t live with it. I know the Hyper V team has given some explaination about the technical problems etc. but to me those are more like excuses. Why will a laptop with Hyper V not go in sleep mode when there are no VM’s running? I can understand that they have kept the priorities of enterprise servers while designing this product, but one of the biggest users of Virtualization are developers, and they don’t have servers which are on 24×7. I would like my laptop to sleep, save power when I put the lid down and myself go to sleep at night. Don’t have the patience to wait for boot up and shutdown times everytime I leave my laptop. At least enable sleep on lid down, so that my hard disks don’t keep spinning and heating up all thru the night.
I tried VMWare Server which was the free version out recently. However, found it a bit of mess with no help file for a first time VMWare user and I was really in no mood to dig up documents to find out how to connect to the VM. I may be tired and sleepy but definitely not very impressed by VMWare Server considering the amount of stuff I have heard about it.
Well, to cut the long story short, I have decided to stick to Virtual PC for a little while, and alternatively go navite. I do have a blazing fast laptop, and a blazing fast server OS, so will try and work without VM’s. Will develop like old school before VM’s came into picture. Will load WSS on my Windows 2008 install and start developing. For MOSS, I will bear the pain of VPC for now till I make up my mind for a nice virtualization software to use.
I recently installed Windows Server 2008 64 bit edition to my laptop. I agree getting all drivers were a little bit of effort, and I still have a driver missing for an unknown device which keeps prompting me, but I will say the effort and pain was well worth it. The installation process was really smooth. I did format my hard drive and make a clean install. It was nice to finally make a move to 64 bit and what better than Server 2008. It’s a fantastic OS. Possibly one of the best Microsoft has produced till date.
I configured my system to use it as a workstation using many of the tutorials and guides available on the net. I may write up everything in one concise post if people want, but the information is pretty widely available. I can say one thing. It’s fast. Oh did I mention that I now have 4 GB of RAM and being 64 bit, I can finally use all of it.
It was an interesting experience hunting for 64 bit applications. True that most of the 32 bit apps work fine, but being a perfectionist that I am, I will still keep looking for pure 64 bit version of every software I use. Goal is to be fully 64 bit in the near future.
Even Lord of the Rings Online works fine after updating my graphics driver and updating Windows. Next step was to setup the ultimate development rig over this base OS install. Will describe my experience in a seperate post. However I will recommend every developer to try it over Vista. It rocks.
I have been taking quite a bit of interest in Windows Server 2008 these days. Along with getting ready for the next server platform it also seems like the best platform to run natively on my development laptop. would make the perfect environment for MOSS development.
For those interested, Microsoft has released a bunch of Step by Step Guides which will help get up to speed with Windows Server 2008. Definitely worth a look if you ever get stuck trying to configure the server and can’t find the required options.