Hi Tom, I try to avoid needing a backup scenario that is manual, so keep files that I need saved onto Google Drive, git for source code, and I use Chocolatey to restore a full development environment...so if I have to set it up (on another machine or disaster recovery) it's a pretty quick process... I appreciate that backing up VMs is pretty handy though (same with snapshots for testing)...can often need a lot of space to store the VM backups of course. Depending on how they are licensed, it's also easy to give another person a VM backup...but the environment restore chcocolatey stuff has worked well in that scenario as well... Liking the discussion either way. david nixon
senior developer, hordernIT | [ www.hordernIT.com.au ]( http://www.hordernIT.com.au ) Melbourne Office - level 3, 480 Collins Street, Melbourne +61 (0)3 9620 0444 Geelong Office - Suite 102, 78 Moorabool Street, Geelong, +61 (0)3 5222 1672 -----Original Message----- From: "Tom P" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, 15 March, 2015 11:39am To: "ozDotNet" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [OT] Dev environment setup I actually considered creating a second user on my laptop purely for development work but correct me if I'm wrong but is it not easier to backup a VM image (a single file AFAIK) than backing up in your scenario? With a VM I could simply copy the dev image onto a different machine or even the same machine if I reformat for example -- Thanks Tom On 13 March 2015 at 11:38, David Nixon <[ [email protected] ]( mailto:[email protected] )> wrote: I've found that I create a second user on my Windows laptop so that then I can have all settings/bookmarks/short cuts/apps/desktop separate but without the overhead of running VMs...I use to run VMs though. Things like Google Chrome/Drive also work well if you have separate accounts for personal/work etc. Thanks, David. david nixon senior developer, hordernIT | [ www.hordernIT.com.au ]( http://www.hordernIT.com.au ) Melbourne Office - level 3, 480 Collins Street, Melbourne [ +61 (0)3 9620 0444 ]( tel:%2B61%20%280%293%209620%200444 ) Geelong Office - Suite 102, 78 Moorabool Street, Geelong, [ +61 (0)3 5222 1672 ]( tel:%2B61%20%280%293%205222%201672 ) -----Original Message----- From: "Greg Keogh" <[ [email protected] ]( mailto:[email protected] )> Sent: Friday, 13 March, 2015 10:19am To: "ozDotNet" <[ [email protected] ]( mailto:[email protected] )> Subject: Re: [OT] Dev environment setup Tom, because I'm just a one-man-band I prefer to have the dev environment on my real machine, otherwise sharing a standard VM would be worth considering. I was forced to go back to VS2012 for a few months so I set it up in a VM and it worked perfectly, but you have to fiddle with buttons to make it go over dual monitors, then it would hide stuff on the real machine and I got sick of going back back-and-forth. So mainly for a pleasant desktop experience I prefer to develop in the real machine. I still have that VM in case I need it, and I have another VM with a duplicated VS2013 environment so I can perform "cold checkouts" and coax everything to build (which is usually quite a struggle!). I have other "test" VMs running Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 and Ubuntu Linux. I even have one running Windows 95, but it was just an experiment to see if it was possible. The invention of the VM was a fabulous leap into the future Greg K On 12 March 2015 at 15:50, Tom P <[ [email protected] ]( mailto:[email protected] )> wrote: Hi How do the experienced devs here setup their personal laptops/desktops for development? Do you just install VS directly on the machine and not worry about it or use "virtual machines" (just learning these) to isolate the dev stuff? Any good reasons for the latter or simply do it as a "just in case"? -- Thanks Tom
