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Programming Windows Hardware

Ask Slashdot: Configuring Development Environment On a Shared Workstation? 158

Posted by timothy from the show-me-your-diagram dept.
First time accepted submitter xyourfacekillerx writes "After a long hiatus of developing (ASP.NET), I decided to pick it up again. I need to learn .NET and SQL for my new job (GIS tech using ESRI software). Down the road they need a PHP website, tons of automation tasks, some serious data consolidation, they want mobile apps in theory. This is not my job description, but I'm sure I can do it. Long story short, I need to setup a development environment on my home desktop, so I can do all this in my spare time. Trouble is, I share the machine (Win 8.1, 2.7 dual core pentium something or other, with virtualization support.) I want to avoid affecting the other users profiles. I currently use my profile for music production (Reason) and photography (Photoshop, et al) so it's already resource intensive with RAM, CPU and VMM. I'll be needing to install all of your basic Microsoft developer suites, IIS, SQl Server, ANdroid SDK, Java SDK, device emulators, etc. etc. Plus AMP and finally GIS software. There will obviously be a lot of services running, long build times, and so on. To wit, I wouldn't be able to use my desktop for my other purposes like the music editing. So I need some advice. Would it help to set up all these tools under a different account on the same Win 8.1 install? Or should I virtualize my development environment (and how?), and run the virtual machine side by side? Or should I add a HDD or secondary partition and boot to that when I intend to develop? I am poor ATM, but is there a cheap very mini PC I can place next to my desktop and run all my development software off that, remote desktop into it? I've done a lot of googling the last week and haven't turned up anything, so I turn to Slashdot. Please help me get organized so I can start coding again."
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Ask Slashdot: Configuring Development Environment On a Shared Workstation? More

Ask Slashdot: Configuring Development Environment On a Shared Workstation?

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  • They don't take up resources when they're not running...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SQLGuru ( 980662 )

      As a consultant, I run a new VM for each client. This ensures that the software I install for one client (including licensed software) doesn't interfere with any of the software for another client. You should be able to do the same with your development environment at home. Virtual Box works well. I currently use Hyper-V on my Windows 8.1 machine. Whichever you prefer should do. If the machine is shut down, it doesn't really consume any resources.

      • I agree with this. Hyper-V on windows 8.1 is the way to go for dev environment if you need desktop class OS. If you can get a dev license for Windows Server 2008 or 2012, it will be fine also and help you later on in the configuration management as you approach production level code.

        Either way you should absolutely virtualize and learn how to use Fixed Differencing VMs (base workstation host + base virtual machine + differenced VM). Once you get a baseline virtual machine set up, you make it read-only and h

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by msim ( 220489 )

          This is a quite clever answer. Thankyou. I'm not the asker (obviously) but still found this answer quite educational, especially when I read up on it a bit more afterwards. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of these kinds of vm's before.

    • They don't take up resources when they're not running...

      Well, ... now I know...

    • I'm not sure that this is true. In the default installation the services are configured to run. I could be mistaken though.

      Either way don't install IIS or SQL Server on the host OS, install only on the virtual machine.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Of course you could just go into the control panel and point-and-click until the services aren't running by default. But perhaps that's beyond the skills of the average slashdotter.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:15PM (#46008369)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by pspahn ( 1175617 )

      Pretty much this. Not sure who these "other users" are, but if they are children, you're going to regret giving them access to your dev machine.

      Personally, I use a host for a lot of my development. Local development is nice and fast and all, but I find it tends to give developers a false idea of how well their code performs in a live environment.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by icebike ( 68054 )

        Pretty much this. Not sure who these "other users" are, but if they are children, you're going to regret giving them access to your dev machine

        Wait, has windows 8.1 slipped so far in the security department that you can't isolate one user from another?
        Windows professionals tell me all the time that windows can be protected and locked down just as tightly as Linux. (I don't necessarily believe this, but they get paid the big bucks to do this in their day jobs).

        Normal account control features should provide all the protection you need if used correctly. Children should have a limited account, obviously, but permissions should keep any unauthorized

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          Wait, has windows 8.1 slipped so far in the security department that you can't isolate one user from another

          Assuming different library paths etc, then not easily.
          Sadly, the CP/M I was using on a toy computer at school in 1985 had better user separation than modern MS Windows.

          • CP/M with user accounts?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dbIII ( 701233 )
              Microbee has it, which was a nice feature in schools.
              A few others had it too.
              Some time back the writer Piers Anthony wrote a long afterword in one of his novels about the joys of writing on a shared home computer with CP/M keeping his writing stuff separate from other stuff.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fisted ( 2295862 )

          Wait, has windows 8.1 slipped so far in the security department that you can't isolate one user from another?

          slipped? has windows /ever/ been there?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Woah. Question asked and answered. I vote we close this discussion now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      buy another computer

      Seconded. Safer and easier to have a dedicated workstation. Sometimes you have to "invest" in your career.

      I've purchased RAM, communications software, chair mats, thumb (flash) drives, etc. for work to keep things smooth that otherwise were difficult to get procured for various reasons.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msim ( 220489 )

        The answer I would have gone with is if you wanted to keep the same desk was to use a KVM and have things separated. Others suggested Clever VM ideas which I think are pretty neat. However you're right. There's no separation of systems in case things go to crap on one and you need to use another pc as a plan-b or you need to quickly interrupt your recording session to do something on the Dev environment for whatever reason (say you received an inane phone call at 9 at night from someone you've been waiting

    • I just picked up a nice Dell desktop at their off-lease store http://dfsdirectsales.com/ [dfsdirectsales.com] that could easily handle your development work. It is an Optiplex 790 desktop with anIvy Bridge i5 CPU (i5-2400), mfg says it supports 16 Gigs of RAM (web reports show it can take 32 gigs), has a single HD bay and with a coupon it was just about $250 with 2 Gigs RAM and a small HD (80-160 Gig) shipped.

      This is a quad-core CPU, and for an OS I'd suggest looking into the various MS offering to get you a single-use OS licen

  • Yawn (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:16PM (#46008375)

    Why are these questions landing on ./?

    I am sure there is forums more adequate for this kind of line noise.

    Let's turn the tide before Slashdot turns into News For Idiots.

    • Not only that, he's asking the wrong forum. If you have questions about all these Microsoft technologies, why not go to the experts at Microsoft and ask them? That's what you're paying all that money for with that MSDN account. I'm sure they'll be happy to advise you on how to proceed.

      If you can't afford an MSDN account, then you really have no business doing MS development work. If you're working with MS technologies at work, they're supposed to provide that stuff for you.

      • Not only that, he's asking the wrong forum. If you have questions about all these Microsoft technologies, why not go to the experts at Microsoft and ask them? That's what you're paying all that money for with that MSDN account. I'm sure they'll be happy to advise you on how to proceed.

        If you can't afford an MSDN account, then you really have no business doing MS development work. If you're working with MS technologies at work, they're supposed to provide that stuff for you.

        Well, they gave all that stuff away for free when I was in college. I had every thing I could ever want and fully functional software and immense support from MS reps and faculty, and now it's been a few years and I don't have all that.

        I don't see the harm in asking how other people configure a development environment in their home. I couldn't make up my mind, so I couldn't act. Reading the responses will inevitably bias me to favor one option over another. This is the perfect forum to get that information,

        • If they're not giving it to you for free, and making it hard to develop using their products, then maybe you should ask yourself, "why am I using their products instead of products which I can get for free?"

  • VirtualBox (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:17PM (#46008377)

    Step 1: Install VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/)

    Step 2: Install the dev. OS of your choice inside your new virtual box.

    Step 3: Install all the dev. tools you need into the OS inside the new virtual box.

    Voilla, you've now hidden most of your dev. changes from anyone else using the PC. They just see a VirtualBox install.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by WarJolt ( 990309 )

      Development PCs require a different set of tools for different developers. Even on the same project someone will invariably want to use their own favorite tool. A developer cannot depend on IT or a sys admin to install something that they might need. A virtual machine can allow for custom development environments without affecting other users. Virtual machines will also help when you need to do some testing.

      • Re:VirtualBox (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mlts ( 1038732 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @09:17PM (#46009569)

        Virtual machines are great for other uses. Malware or corruption? Roll back to a snapshot. Want to see how one's system is at the exact time a 1.0 release gets pushed out? Snapshot time. Fearing that a bad coding error takes the VM out? Snapshot before the run.

        Of course, VMs won't help much if doing hardware development, but with just one PC used by multiple people, VMs are pretty much the only way to go.

        As for VM software, that can be a toss-up. VirtualBox is licensed at no charge, VMWare costs a couple C-notes, and Hyper-V may be present on the box. Hyper-V is nice since it is a type 1 hypervisor (so a second VM runs on the same level as the main machine), but VMWare Workstation has a lot of nice tools (encryption for the disk files, auto-protect for snapshot backups, etc.)

        • Of course, VMs won't help much if doing hardware development, but with just one PC used by multiple people, VMs are pretty much the only way to go.

          For Windows, maybe.

          Those of us used to other OS's have been able to do that kind of stuff for almost forever, no VM required. Even with more than one person using the machine at the same time.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mlts ( 1038732 )

            Very true. The OP was running Windows, so I handed him a solution along those lines.

            On OS X, there is VirtualBox, Parallels, and VMWare Fusion.

            On Linux, one has VMWare Workstation, VirtualBox, and Xen (Xen being a level 1 hypervisor.)

            *BSD has QEMU.

            Yes, there are alternatives to VMs. Jails and chrooting come to mind. However, in Windows, the OP is pretty much reliant on virtual machines to do what he needs to do.

            • Actually, what I meant was that on mainframes and minicomputers, you'd just login as a different user on a different terminal. You'd have your own home directory and user environment independent of any other user on the system.

              jails and chroots are essentially partial VMs, so I wasn't thinking of them.

              The closest approximation on Windows would be Citrix, but Citrix works best when the apps have been written for multiple concurrent users, which isn't the norm for Windows apps.

    • But that's not a Microsoft solution you insensitive clod!

    • Don't use virtualbox if you have to option to use Hyper-V. VM management will be much easier and will debugging any issues.

    • Virtualization is great, but compared to containerization it is a real pig. I'm in a similar situation to the OP, and I generally shut down my development VMs before doing graphics work, video editing, or relinquishing the workstation to my sons to play games. This includes idle VMs, which still chew up a fair amount of RAM and CPU. With containers, unless there is a busy process running, I can leave them running without notice.

      Most operations on containers, with the exception of downloading the first image

  • I wouldn't worry too much (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:19PM (#46008387) Homepage Journal

    You didn't post your exact specs, but if you're worried about services and are resource constrained, just set them to start manually. When you want to code, start the ones you need (webserver, SQL, etc.). It's a little more work but it's not that bad. You could even script it so that all you'd need to do is run one command script to start or stop the needed services.

  • If you're that concerned about not affecting other users, then either separate hardware or virtualization is the answer. Whether you virtualize or buy new hardware depends on the level of performance required and what else will be running at the same time. If you want to build in the background and continue to maintain your existing audio suite (wich, as you say, needs to take over all reqources on the machine) then you've answered your own question: buy the separate box that you remote into for your deve

    • If you're that concerned about not affecting other users, then either separate hardware or virtualization is the answer.

      Exactly. Or even do both: Virtualize first, then throw more hardware at it if/when necessary. Just move the virtual machine to another physical machine as required. Also makes it easy to build and test in multiple versions of multiple distros of multiple OSs. Plus, you can now backup (or even version-control) your whole build environment as easily as saving a single file using whatever method you like.

      • You can get 16 gigs of ram, AMD 6 core, and ssd system for $800. Virtualbox is free until first paycheck where VMware is better. Sounds like the wife is holding the purse strings or he was unemployed for awhile. Credit card time and pay it off in 3 months. Sorry but things cost money and he and the misses need to suck it up. A dual core tablet won't do what is needed.

        For web work virtualization is required as freaking office!? Clients love IE 6 support and whine about your code if an ancient IE rendering bu

  • Why are you sharing a workstation with someone else if you're doing all this stuff on it? With whom are you sharing it? For all my jobs I have had my own workstation and so have any other developers. Are you only coming into work 50% of the time or something?

  • Let work provide tools for work (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Draw the line between personal and work. You can find a diplomatic way to ask for your manager to provide the tools that you need to perform the work that they will ask you to do.
    If work has a test environment, ask for access to that. No test environment? Develop on the system where the site will be hosted. Once that is done, go back to the manager and ask them to budget for the test server (unless they want to deploy test code in production.)

    • Re:Let work provide tools for work (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gabereiser ( 1662967 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:39PM (#46008509)
      This, I'm surprised people are even giving suggestions for him to do work that's "not part of his job description" in his spare time. Don't. Just don't do it. You either get paid to do the work level that your qualified to do or you don't. Don't take on responsibilities that aren't yours. This is a cardinal rule as will only end up in you working yourself to death doing everyone else's job (even if they don't even work there at all). Limit yourself to your job description and leave it at that. If that need a mobile developer, inform them that you would do it gladly but that it would be additional job duties and you should be compensated for it in turn.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeah, what a sucker, trying to update his skills (that he doesn't yet have) in advance so he's ready to fill what he sees as an upcoming need in his business and negotiate from a position of strength having already prepared to do the job. But fuck that, it's not in his job description. What a shitty attitude. Not everyone is a do the bare minimum to get by clock puncher. Some people proactively identify problems and solve them. This is a prime skill for success. .

        There's a huge difference between "doing e
        • Actaully it does not clearly seem the case, he is writing: I got a new job, and I need to setup my home PC so I can do all this work in my spare time... Quite poorly written to fit your description, isn't it?
        • Learning new skills is part of being a programmer, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying learn these skills when your interested in doing so, not because there's a potential for some project through work and you want to be an asshole and take it on yourself without getting professionals who have been doing it a lot longer than you have involved.

          On the contrary, I implore every programmer to learn new skills, especially ones that are job related, but not a completely separate set of skills so you can be t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by manicb ( 1633645 )

        Welcome to Slashdot 2014: news for professionals, stuff that you're being paid to care about

      • This, I'm surprised people are even giving suggestions for him to do work that's "not part of his job description" in his spare time. Don't. Just don't do it. You either get paid to do the work level that your qualified to do or you don't. Don't take on responsibilities that aren't yours. This is a cardinal rule as will only end up in you working yourself to death doing everyone else's job (even if they don't even work there at all). Limit yourself to your job description and leave it at that. If that need a mobile developer, inform them that you would do it gladly but that it would be additional job duties and you should be compensated for it in turn.

        Agreed. My first thought was, "If he is doing this for a new job why aren't they supplying him with a laptop so he can use it at home AND at work?" You know, like a sane company would, or at least one with a clue. If they are expecting you to do this extra work, or if you volunteered, the least they could do is supply you with a portable dev machine. Run. Run away from that company.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mcmonkey ( 96054 )

          Agreed. My first thought was, "If he is doing this for a new job why aren't they supplying him with a laptop so he can use it at home AND at work?" You know, like a sane company would, or at least one with a clue. If they are expecting you to do this extra work, or if you volunteered, the least they could do is supply you with a portable dev machine. Run. Run away from that company.

          Because he told them he could do all this stuff. He's already committed to be an expert with .Net and MS-SQL and Porterzebbi and whatever else they asked in the interview. That's why he can't ask them for help with training.

          I know it's cliche to complain about Ask /., but this one is really bad. If you can't even figure out how to set up an environment where you can teach yourself programming, you shouldn't be telling other people you know how to program.

          The answers here are mind-numbingly trivial. You

          • And this, this is what I was getting at. Surely a company who needs a mobile presence wouldn't just throw the job at some guy because he "says" he can do it, he has to prove it. And no one in their right mind would do this on the side, not get paid, unless they loved to do it. Not for some "chance" to get the job that his job may or may not present to him. The older you get, the more you realize that companies exploit tech-level people because they don't understand what's involved. By us tech-level pe
  • Get a dedicated development box. Quickly. Do it now. You will be heading for serious trouble otherwise. And as another use above said: SEPARATE YOUR CONCERNS. You need at least 2 boxes, then. Really.

  • I don't get it. Just install the development environment. Having Visual Studio installed is not going to make other applications slower. Just don't run Photoshop, Visual Studio, Reason and Crysis at the same time?

  • Good luck and congrats on your motivation.
    Now, if you have spare time but no cash, get another job, evenings or weekends, and then buy yourself a decent dev box.
    Or a tablet or laptop for the other people who share the machine.
    If you're space and budget constrained, you can share the screen(s) with a switch box.

  • It will also make backups easy since you can clone from one disk to the other.

  • I couldn't function without it.

    You need IE 6,7,8,9, and w3c compliant browsers all up. You may need node.js to test something that can conflict with Apache? Problem solved create another VM and don't mess with the other one. Need a domain setup like work to test app? Create a server and client to test etc. I would even go as far as saying no real professional would not use them.

    Now in terms of your computer and conversation with the misses. Get a new one. It is pennywise and dollar dumb without one. It is a

  • Lots of services? Why? (Score:3)

    by Karellen ( 104380 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @06:50PM (#46008565) Homepage

    I'll be needing to install all of your basic Microsoft developer suites, IIS, SQl Server, ANdroid SDK, Java SDK, device emulators, etc. etc. Plus AMP and finally GIS software. There will obviously be a lot of services running, long build times, and so on.

    Huh?

    Why will there be "a lot" of services running? Yes, you'll have IIS and SQL server, but that's only two services - and if you've only got a small test database and a couple of dev websites, they'll hardly take any resources at all if you're not actually using them. So, if you're not sat in front of the computer actually doing development, and someone else is logged in instead, it shouldn't really affect them at all. Ditto "long build times" - what sort of things are you planning on writing that are going to take so long to build that you'll have to walk away from the computer for long enough that someone else will want to use it concurrently?

    Visual Studio, the SDKs, and the emulators will put extra entries in other people's start menus, but so what? If they don't run them themselves, they won't do anything or get in the way. Presumably not all these other users run your music production and photo editing software either, and that's not hurting them, is it?

    To wit, I wouldn't be able to use my desktop for my other purposes like the music editing.

    Why on earth not?

  • So just use a virtual machine to set all of this up. Set up a VHD in Hyper-V, install Win8.1 and all of your tools to it, and it affects no one else. Alternatively, you may be able to do cloud-based development, since MS has an internet version of VS as well as a cloud DB and storage, but then you may lose the Android stuff.
  • Stop right there. If this is what your company is going to pay you to do, let them pay you to do it. Also, let them provide the tools you need to do the work. A powerful laptop can handle what you're trying to do.

  • "I need to setup a development environment on my home desktop"

    No.

    If you are doing it for work then your employer supplies the equipment. Maybe if it is convenient for *you* then some might add something for their personal equipment, e.g. I get my work calendar on my personal phone since it is more convenient for me to see it there than on my employer-supplied computer and the overhead is low. Since you have demonstrated how inconvenient it is to do it on your own equipment, you've proven that it is incorrec

    • If he is not specifically working at home but needs to learn it, well good luck with that.

      Just put the money down and tell yourself it is an important investment. A now n hardware accelerated dual core can't run the several VMs required. But the return means steady employment.

    • "I need to setup a development environment on my home desktop"

      No.

      If you are doing it for work then your employer supplies the equipment. Maybe if it is convenient for *you* then some might add something for their personal equipment, e.g. I get my work calendar on my personal phone since it is more convenient for me to see it there than on my employer-supplied computer and the overhead is low. Since you have demonstrated how inconvenient it is to do it on your own equipment, you've proven that it is incorrect to use your own equipment.

      I would go further and say no on the grounds that it directly benefits the company and that they should supply the dev machine and pay any software costs. That's how unexploitive companies work, anyway.

  • Install Visual Studio.. it has its own built in web server. You can use SQL express. If you are really worried about system resources, manually start/stop SQL server only when you are developing

  • Cheaping out. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by westlake ( 615356 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @07:07PM (#46008659)
    Do yourself a favor and buy a PC that is all your own.

    Work product on a shared home PC? Multiple users? The most brain-dead idea ever posted to Slashdot.

  • Like some of the other commenters, I would really, really think about it before you went down that road. Doing stuff for free is rarely a good idea long term, even if it's "simple" like being the family tech support. If you do go down that path, troll around on craigslist for a cheap C2D SFF desktop. I don't know where you are, but you can find them for around $50 here in Chicago. Maybe throw in a larger HD or some more RAM but that is plenty to run all the development stuff you want. You're not going to g

  • If your current hardware is so crap that it can't run IIS and a SQL instance on idle without causing your recordings to buffer under run, then you really should throw that old Pentium II out and buy a current gen PC.

    You're not going to be doing a rebuild all on 1,000,000s of lines of code while working with your DAW, so it's not even an issue.

    As for background processes...I have 158 of them running right now and the only two who are above 0% utilisation are the system idle process and IAStorDataMgrSvc, whic

  • When idle and not receiving requests, tools like web servers and databases consume virtually no CPU on a Windows box.

    You can even game on a box that's running a PHP server and a database engine or few, provided you have enough RAM to prevent thrashing and swapping.

    You don't need to futz around with virtual environments or any of the rest of it. After the installers place their icons on all the accounts, just remove them from the desktops where you don't need those tools. Or ignore the extra icons --

  • Isn't this type of thing exactly why modern operating systems have multiple users? You install as much software for your user as you want to, and when your wife logs on with her user account to do music editing or whatever, she doesn't see any of your development tools at all.

    I run a LAMP environment + PostgreSQL + Java (Eclipse, Tomcat, Android JDK, etc) on a 6 year old desktop computer with 5GB of RAM and it runs just fine - sure, there are several backup services running (databases, tomcat, webservers)

  • It's a no brainer. You'll want a development environment, and ideally a replica of the environment your app will be running on in production. You'll want to keep these environments clean of other crap that is not related to avoid introducing dependencies on stuff not in your production environment and to simplify troubleshooting.

    VMs also give you all the benefits of being able to roll back to prior snapshots to help develop/test an upgrade procedure for new versions of your software.

  • I'd start with Visual Studio Online (http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-online-overview-vs) - five user free basic version. Get your coding skills up to date, then work on a new rig.

  • go virtual on a dedicated box (Score:3)

    by D1G1T ( 1136467 ) on Sunday January 19, 2014 @08:54PM (#46009431)
    Once you get used to working virtualized with remote desktop access you'll never go back. Fire up a new "machine" for every work-profile. You can tune the number of processors and memory per VM so that big compile or video render won't step on something that needs to be interactive. After seeing http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/p/apple-mac-mini-resources.html [virtuallyghetto.com] I went out and grabbed a mac mini and a thunderbolt ethernet adapter (for dual ports), and downloaded the free vmware esxi package. It makes everything very easy.

  • Why in this day and age, would you pay or even BOTHER with those toolsets when you can almost certainly design and build such a system for far less, and better technology (Eclipse, PostGRES, LINUX, ANDROID) using far less hardware?

    The GIS extensions in Java and PostGRES are fab.

    You can check that out at:

    http://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1387/ [postgresql.org]

    -Hackus

  • I share the machine (Win 8.1, 2.7 dual core pentium something or other...

    Do not go the Virtualbox/virtual OS path. Even if you have a good amount of RAM, your machine is not fast enough to seamlessly run two operating systems side by side, and use it for serious development.
    Partition the HDD and install the OS in the new partition, and install the apps/servers/IDEs.
    Do you have an SSD? if not buy a 64 GB cheap SSD...its worth the upgrade and install the OS/apps/IDE on the SSD.

  • If SQL Server isn't being used (no connections), the OS'll just swap it out and there's no wastage. Ditto all the other things you mentioned. If you're going to be writing software, maybe you should learn the old adage about premature optimization.

    My advice is:
    1) Install everything you need
    2) See if a problem actually occurs
    3) It won't so stop worrying

  • Assuming the parameters here are that you don't want to buy a whole new PC outright, I recommend getting another hard drive and installing a fresh windows copy to it. Mask it from the other installation entirely so no one messes with it, and if someone asks just tell them its for work and take reasonable security measures (if you can, disk level encryption would probably be good here with your standard account passwords etc.).

    Considering the specs of the PC you probably don't want to try and run VMs for a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zmobie ( 2478450 )

      As a note here too, to save yourself some money you can probably use the same windows license to do the other install (assuming it isn't OEM) and get around a lot of the validation problems. Since the two installations physically can't run at the same time you should never have to worry about validation issues and I believe you are still within the end users rights since you are using the license on the same machine. Now when you get money and upgrade your set up to be another computer, you will need to u

    • Well, parent was about the best post I read. Confirmed my doubts about not splitting up the installations... I guess this is my best option at this moment in time, so here we go. Thanks Slashdot, thanks Zmobie.

  • And by another computer.
  • Strange how nobody picked up the more troubling notes from the question. GIS development and .NET do not really mix that well. If the company (and you) are serious about GIS (or it is a large component) consider switching to Python or Java, or be at the (not so merciful and closed sourced) hands of ESRI. I have been developing a extremely large .NET application suite for the Dutch government for the last 5 years. It is still not working. Problems are the use of Oracle and .NET (Oracle being the biggest prob
  • I see a variety of suggestions of getting another PC, but if your physically at the machine usage and other peoples' won't overlap, just get more memory and a second hard drive. Run VMs stored on that second drive - odds are good that you're not really CPU-bound these days unless there's some serious gaming going on.

  • I want to avoid affecting the other users profiles

    By definition different profiles exist to not affect each other.

    I wouldn't be able to use my desktop for my other purposes like the music editing

    Why? I'll assume you're talking about hardware limits.

    Would it help to set up all these tools under a different account on the same Win 8.1 install? Or should I virtualize my development environment (and how?)

    Here it seems like you think that adding another user or a VM would magically double your hardware resources.

    I hope you poorly wrote your post, or you'd better figure out those basic things before you want to be a programmer!

  • Can I suggest you activate the Hyper-V Role in W8.1 and create a virtual machine for your dev work. Can I also suggest you take a look at Visual Studio Online (visualstudio.com) as a good free version control system.

  • Just install Oracle VM VirtualBox and create a virtual machine. The development tools and build times will probably not be as big a resource / time hog as you think.

  • I wanted to setup my devel environment exactly once and use it on my home desktop, my travel laptop and be able to hand it off to my development partner and have him use the exact same environment.

    Assuming both workstations are adequate resource-wise (RAM, CPU) to host a VM that runs all your devel tools then an external HDD with a VM disk works pretty well in my experience. I setup my repo on the HDD and I can clone the whole HDD and put a copy in my fire safe with my other drives.

    I'd get a USB 3.0 or

  • I actually have several installs on my laptop booting with this method.

  • Railroaded by intense technical discussion... (Score:3)

    by aaronb1138 ( 2035478 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @12:19AM (#46021689)
    I can't be the only one who noticed a few things that seem amiss with the premise.

    a) This guy has taken a new job and intends to take home an entirely unrelated project to do on his own.

    b) He's not asking his workplace to provision resources for him to do this out of job scope project. Sounds like he hasn't consulted with anyone about taking on this task.

    c) He claims to have the skillset to easily solve their website / application needs, but hasn't been successful enough professionally to purchase reasonable tools for his trade. Even car mechanics in the $18-25k / year range (essentially poverty) manage to save and invest appropriately in quality tools.

    d) He's doing an Ask /. for a question trivially answerable by Google or any modern best practices for development guide.

    e) Many of the tools he will more than likely be pirating are each worth more than the general requirements he has for this endeavor as far as hardware goes. Will his employer be alright with this?

    f) Oh, I see, he's into music production (Reason). Ignore all of my other issues. Sorry, but his request for assistance falls awfully well into certain stereotypes which explain everything.

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