Installing Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 .NET development machine

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With a new job comes a new machine and as with all new machines an installation is required. I thought it would be nice to document it as I had done with installing a Microsoft Windows XP development machine previously, an article I seem to have lost in a blog move.

The first issue at hand is whether to use the 32 or 64 bit version of Vista, the answer is both easy and overly complicated, so let me simplify… If you have less or equal to 3GB of RAM go for the 32 bit. From 3GB onwards, the 64 bit is a requirement to be able to use the memory above 3GB. I have installed the 64 bit on machines with 2GB of RAM without any adverse effect, a good option if you want to upgrade your RAM later. As for the edition, Business will be your choice because you will need IIS and it’s only available for Business onwards and I find Ultimate bulky and gimmicky, see here for details.

For recommendations on machine specifications go here and here where I discuss this in length.

From here is my check list and installation sequence with a couple of notes.

1. Microsoft Windows Vista Business
   Don’t forget to add everything IIS but to exclude FTP as you will want to install FTP 7.0 via Microsoft Web Platform Installer, also add Message Queue Server and remove the Tablet PC components if you do not have a Tablet PC. 
   1. Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1
      To my surprise, you cannot install Microsoft Vista Service Pack 2 until Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 is installed
   2. Microsoft Vista Service Pack 2
   3. Network drivers if required
   4. Windows updates, include the Live tools so you can Blog too ;-)
   5. Balance of drivers as required
   6. Daemon Tools Lite, very important if like me you have a ton of ISOs on a portable hard drive.

At this time an Anti-Virus is a good idea, I personally recommend Symantec’s Norton Internet Security but if you are cash strapped AVG Free will do the basics.

1. Microsoft Office 2007 Professional
   1. Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2, Service pack 1 is not required in this case.
   2. Windows updates
2. Microsoft Visio 2007
   1. Microsoft Visio 2007 Service Pack 2
   2. Windows updates
3. Microsoft SQL 2008 Developer Edition complete installation.
   1. Microsoft SQL 2008 Service Pack 1
   2. Windows updates
4. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional
   Exclude Microsoft SQL 2005 Express 
   I’ll talk about the add-ons and tools I use for development in another post.
   1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1
   2. Windows Updates
5. Microsoft SQL 2008 Express Service Pack 1
   
6. Tools
   1. Paint.NET
   2. CCleaner
   3. Defraggler
   4. Virtual Box, my favourite PC emulation tool.
   5. Filezilla for FTP
   6. WinMerge for comparing files
   7. Microsoft Web Platform Installer come in handy to install all those IIS add-ons and extra apps.
   8. For PHP and MySQL installation refer to the tutorials on http://www.trainsignaltraining.com, follow the Windows Server 2008 tutorials as they are identical for Vista. These are the best I found on the net.
      1. IIS 7: Install FastCGI & PHP on Server 2008
      2. Install MySQL on IIS7 Server 2008
      3. Install PHPMyAdmin on IIS7 and Server 2008
      4. IIS7: URL Rewrite Extension on Windows Server 2008
      5. And for setting up your Wordpress blog before putting it live:
         1. Installing WordPress on IIS 7 – Part 1
         2. Installing WordPress on IIS7 – Part 2
   9. Tweetdeck for Twitter and Facebook
      

And there is my skeleton development installation sequence and checklist.

I hope this will help you.