The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Windows Server 2003 as Nightly Build Box

Windows Server 2003 as Nightly Build Box

I'm considering using WS2003 (Standard Edition) instead of Windows XP Pro as the OS on my Nightly Builder and Setup Release box.

Anyone experience any problems with installing and running any of the following tools and SDKs on WS2003?

- Visual Studio 6 (need to build VB6 apps)
- Visual Studio.NET 2002 (C and CPP)
- Visual Studio.NET 2003 (upgrade soon)
- InstallShield Studio 9
- Cygwin v1.0 (to host 68K gcc cross compiler)
- MSDN Platform SDK tools (latest version)
- Windows Media Format SDK

Any advise from the wise?

Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng
Thursday, April 15, 2004

Get a copy of Virtual PC 2004 and a trial edition of Windows Server 2003 - try it out. :-)

(If you've got MSDN Universal this gets even easier)

Philo

Philo
Thursday, April 15, 2004

I have an MSDN Pro Subscription so access to said software is in my hands. Currently we are a VMWare licensed shop.. but the MSDN Pro subscription includes Virutal PC 2004...

And since you (philo) raised the subject... is it worth my time to consider learning and switching over to VPC2004, or is VMWare 4.0 Workstation still on par feature-for-feature? Is VPC2004 starting to take the lead as desktop VPC solution?

(I suspect MSFT started to include VPC with MSDN to temp VMWare Workstation users like my)

In terms of my original posted question... I'm just trolling for "gotcha's" that other people are willing to share... I would rather avoid the lengthy install/setup work.. just to find out in the end that it would have worked in the first place on bare metal

Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng
Friday, April 16, 2004

Interesting... today there was a news story about how VMware has doubled its revenue... in the latest quarter. I guess VPC being bought by Microsoft is a negative ;)

From what I've heard VMWare is a couple of generations ahead of VPC. Plus, the VMWare development team calls me up every few months to ask my opinion on features for the next version, so I like them :-)

BTW We use Atozed Final Builder for daily builds and love it. It just gets better and better.

Joel Spolsky
Fog Creek Software
Friday, April 16, 2004

Thanks for the info Joel.... I took your advice way back and purchased Final Builder when the JOS discount was offered 2 years ago.

Heston T. Holtmann, B.Sc.Eng.
Friday, April 16, 2004