12 Comments Episode 8: Virtual Machines

1. Virtual Machines on Herding Code | Lazycoder

   July 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

   [...] posted our 8th episode on Herding Code. We spent some time discussing the pros and cons of using virtual machines in development and for [...]

2. Dave Ward

   July 11th, 2008 at 9:25 am

   

   I’ve gotta say that I’m surprised to hear you guys propagate the Vista FUD.

   I’m running Vista x64 as my primary development platform, on mostly ~2 year old hardware. I’ve never had any driver issues, even using two video cards.

   Granted, having 8gb of RAM probably helps Vista a lot. As cheap as RAM is these days though, I’d expect any serious developer to be headed that direction by now.

   I couldn’t imagine going back to x86 at this point, or jumping through convoluted XP+VPC hoops to get back to where I’m already at.

3. Barry Kelly

   July 11th, 2008 at 9:43 am

   

   @Dave – probably they’re doing it because it’s true. I have a physical Vista Ultimate x86 box underneath my desk alongside my XP machine, and my most recent laptop came with Vista Business, which I eventually downgraded to XP Pro. There’s no doubt about driver issues – my HP printer doesn’t work right with Vista (spooler crashes), and my trusty scanner (about 2 years old, an old USB Mustek model) doesn’t have drivers for Vista. Also, the Vista UI sucks – it’s the Windows Explorer UI I have the biggest problem with, that along with the way the Control Panel got deoptimized for expert users.

4. Jon Galloway

   July 11th, 2008 at 9:55 am

   

   @Dave – There’s no hidden agenda there. I haven’t used 64-bit Windows since a brief run on Windows XP 64. I found that the driver support was a major problem. I haven’t tried 64 bit Vista, but I have been paying attention to the experience of others who are running it. For instance, Hanselman has more than once reported problems due to running 64 bit Vista: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Vista64bitBlueScreensWithINTERNALPOWERERRORImmediatelyAfterInstallingVMWarePlayer.aspx

   Also, while I understand it can be disabled, the driver signing verification thing seems like a major pain in the neck. I’m constantly reading caveats for things that don’t work with 64-bit due to that or other issues.

   Even the current release of Windows Live Writer won’t run on 64 bit – you have to install the Technical Preview of the next version.

5. Dave Ward

   July 11th, 2008 at 10:45 am

   

   It was probably a valid issue at release, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find much recent hardware that doesn’t have signed drivers at this stage. MS won’t sign a vendor’s 32 bit driver without a matching 64 bit driver.

   All the drivers for my ~2 year old hardware had signed Vista x64 drivers available about 9 months ago when I installed x86 on this machine.

   For that matter, aren’t XP x64 drivers more of a pain to deal with than Vista x64?

   Maybe I’m just very lucky with my Vista installs here, and shouldn’t jinx myself…

6. Scott

   July 11th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   

   Dave: I think you’re lucky.

   It’s not FUD if you can’t point to examples.
   http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/dell-xps-m1330.html

7. Jon Galloway

   July 11th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

   

   Well, I’m happy to hear if things have gotten better. I just keep hearing about random programs or driver issues. I mentioned Hanselman’s VMware thing, other random codec and video driver issues (see the comments here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheCodingHorrorUltimateDeveloperRigThrowdownPart3.aspx) I also heard about Powerpoint issus (?!?!): http://blog.davidyack.com/journal/2008/2/5/the-return-of-vista-32bit.html

   So you’re having no problems with driver signing? Not having to hunt around for 64 bit drivers? Not having programs that won’t install or run?

8. Dave Ward

   July 11th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

   

   Not a single driver problem on either x86 or x64. Every driver I’ve needed had a manufacturer supplied x64 driver.

   On both x64 and x86, I have had a few older programs throw up the “This program is known to have problems” dialog. I just ignore it and have had no trouble. Even stuff as old as SQL Server 6.5 Enterprise Manager (don’t laugh) has worked fine. Less Windows friendly apps like SVN and Eclipse have been fine too.

   The one program I lost to Vista was CSSVista (ironic). It half way worked on x86, but won’t run on x64 at all. It’s pretty shaky even on XP though, so I have a hard time blaming Vista for that.

   Don’t get me wrong. I know you guys don’t have a hidden, anti-Vista agenda or anything. I didn’t mean to make it sound that way.

   It just irked me a bit to listen to you guys talk down to Vista, since I was using x64 at the time to listen to the podcast while running a dozen or so development tools and Office products.

9. Jon Galloway

   July 11th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

   

   I’ve got no complaints on Vista, just haven’t had the guts (or hardware) to try 64 bit. I think Vista’s way better than XP.

10. Scott

    July 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    

    (raises hand) I have an anti-Windows agenda. Don’t know that it’s hidden though. ;)

11. Adam Kahtava

    July 15th, 2008 at 5:17 am

    

    I’m running Hyper-v on a modest 64bit laptop, it’s significantly faster that MS VPC. For example I can run 3 VMs running at native speed, but I do have separate hard drives – my laptop looks like an inverted PC with all the wires and drives hanging out.

    For the past year my development has been in VMs, I typically have a Domain Controller, SharePoint Server, and Commerce Server running on separate VMs in an effort to simulate the production environment.

    For me, the biggest drawbacks to working on VMs is non standard screen resolutions, I like to remote into my VMs when I can, but when using a VPN I can’t, so I end up working in a VM with a smaller or larger screen size.

    On a big screen everything is ok, on a laptop things become painful. I’d like to maximize my screen real estate. Any tips on VPN / VMs and screen resolutions?

    Like Dave I’m also running 64bit Vista on my primary dev machine, I did have some issues with video drivers, but once they were updated things have been relatively painless – well… except for weird issue with the keyboard and clipboard. I’m pretty impartial to Vista, I just wanted a 64bit OS, and I think I may install Server 2008 on my desktop for the hyper-v VM performance gains. I’m also toying with the idea of running Linux to make use of KVM.

12. Dave Ward

    July 17th, 2008 at 11:45 am

    

    I guess I did jinx myself.

    I’m setting up XP on VPC right now, so that I can run Terrarium 2.0 (which doesn’t work on Vista yet).

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