JoeAudette.com

I've finally come full circle and am happy developing on Vista again. I was an early adopter and over time I've complained about Vista a few times, so I think its only fair to be just as vocal now that I'm happy with it. In retrospect I think the main problem was that I upgraded a machine that was several years old and it just wasn't powerful enough.

Ever since I got new workstation, development has been a joy, productivity is high. Visual Studio solutions load fast, build fast, and debug fast. With 64 bit Vista you can use a lot more ram. I've got 8 gigs now where before 32 bit Vista/XP could only use 3 gigs. I've got a fast dual core processor (if I had it to do over I would spend more and go quad core). Also 10,000rpm drives make a big difference.

I can't even imagine going back to a 32 bit machine for day to day development. If you are struggling with VS on a slow machine its well worth the investment to get a new 64 bit workstation.