We’ve recently upgraded our ‘standard’ for work computers to be 16GB of memory with a fast CPU (3770K) and SSD drive. We usually setup our main development environment directly on the host OS (Windows 7 64bit or Windows 8 64bit) along with the normal tools (eg Outlook, etc). But then we quite often have a few different development environments in VMs, particularly for supporting old versions of our applications which used older versions of VCL libraries (eg older versions of DevExpress). VMWare Workstation works well and even VMWare Player seems fine so long as you only need to run 1 VM at once.
We have started putting people onto Windows 8, mainly because we like the developers and support staff to be using a variety of OSes so that we are more likely to identify any incompatibilities during general development and testing. One of my Dev VMs is a Windows 8 OS. Windows 8 seems OK so long as you download Start 8 from Stardock (or an equivalent) to replace the moronic start menu, although there is more I would customise/turn off if my host was Windows 8. I have heard that Windows 8 is actually faster than Windows 7, Microsoft worked quite hard to try to make it better than Windows 7 (to make up for the fact they were deliberately making the UI worse in many ways for desktop users!) Cheers, David. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Monday, 29 April 2013 12:17 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: [DUG] Planning PC upgrade - Delphi IDE options At some stage I will be upgrading to a new PC – which likely means going from 32 bit to 64 bit windows, and running Delphi development in a VM or on the host PC depending on advantages of either...and Windows 7 or Windows 8. Checking the options: Q1 – is there any advantage to running the Delphi IDE in a 64 bit environment (ie is any of the IDE 64 bit), or is 32 bit fine. Have D2007 and XE2 at present. Likely to upgrade to whatever upcoming version allows Android development to save having to learn Java etc, and also Objective C for iPhone. (As long as its feasible and workable that is) Q2 – related – if I run a Delphi IDE VM in VMWare workstation any versions of VMWare are there any advantages of 32bit 64bit versions of Windows VMs? At present plans would be to run 32 Windows 7 VM – unless there is a reason to do otherwise (eg 64 bit). At present VMWare 6 or 7. If base PC is Windows 8 64 bit does this change anything – ie better to get later VMWare workstation 8 or 9? Q3 – any advantages of Windows 7 vs Windows 8 Q4 – Delphi IDE in host or VM pros and cons. I have seen that many recommend running Delphi IDE in a VM. Personally I in the past favoured running Delphi IDE on the host PC but open to being convinced otherwise. pros of Delphi IDE on host PC: a – Faster and simpler operation on host PC (one less layer to go wrong) b – if few extra installed components quick to uninstall and reinstall whole of Delphi if something goes wrong. pros of VM: a – make a standard setup VM b – can reset to standard setup VM Others opinions on any of these welcome! John Bird
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