Setting Up Dev environment for SharePoint 2010

Hi All,

This article describes different options to setup development  environment with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Below are Different Options you can have for your Development Machine.

OS	Description
Win 7	Install SharePoint on Windows 7 x64, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 x64, or Windows Vista Service Pack 2 x64. My personal Experience, it works good on your Laptop with 4GB RAM. Please follow below link to have this setup on your system. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx
Windows 2008 Server R2	Install SharePoint on Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 x64 (or Windows Server 2008 R2 x64) Normal Installation as per SharePoint Guidelines.
Boot2VHD	Having Duel Booting enable on your Laptop/Desktop with WIN 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Dual OS Boot from VHD is a new technique for installing and maintaining operating system environments. Unlike virtual machines, the operating system that is running from a “boot from VHD” environment is using the actual hardware instead of emulated hardware http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/22/dual-boot-from-vhd-using-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx – This is really great article.
VMware Image	64-bit Image (Normal Installation as per SharePoint Guidelines)
Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2	Use Microsoft Hyper-V and install SharePoint on a virtual machine running a Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 x64 (or Windows Server 2008 R2 x64) guest operating system