What OS is required to do ASP.NET development?

[Preston Crawford]

I've been out of the Microsoft game for a while. I used to be an ASP
developer and the last two years I've been doing only Java/JSP/Struts with
Linux as my only home OS. I'm thinking of doing this site for my wife
using ASP.NET because our host provides credit card hooks (so they say) if
you use ASP.NET. My other question is this. What OS do you need to do
light ASP.NET development? Is it enough to have XP Home, for example? Or
is there no IIS server available for that? Do you have to have at least
WinXP Pro or Win2k Pro? Remember, we're dealing with small margins here,
so we're trying to keep our costs low. Laying out $300 for Win2k Pro might
not make sense. Can we slide with XP Pro or do we need Win2k? Or do we
need server? My experience from ASP days was that even Win98 had an IIS
server you could run and do some ASP development. I'm just wondering what
the scene is like these days.

Thanks for any advice or help.

Preston

 

[Hermit Dave]

Preston,

you can use any OS from win2k pro onwards. Though you cannot use XP home
cause it doesnt ship with IIS. You might wanna give cassini a try. Dont know
whether its any good or not (its the built in webserver for web matrix..
should be okay with xp home but read more about it at www.asp.net ) so
there's the list of os you can try and use
win2k pro
win2k server (and advanced server)
win xp pro
win2k3

 

[Preston Crawford]

Preston,

you can use any OS from win2k pro onwards. Though you cannot use XP home
cause it doesnt ship with IIS. You might wanna give cassini a try. Dont know
whether its any good or not (its the built in webserver for web matrix..
should be okay with xp home but read more about it at www.asp.net ) so
there's the list of os you can try and use
win2k pro
win2k server (and advanced server)
win xp pro
win2k3

That's what I thought. Thanks!

Preston

 

[Teemu Keiski]

Hi,

WinXP Home does not have IIS by default but there are workarounds to get it
working with the Home version. If you can do that, you can develop with Home
version. From other versions 2000 and XP PRo are of course full-working for
development.

Check:
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/020118.htm
http://www.governmentsecurity.org/articles/IISonWinXPHomeEditionusefultutorial.php

(note that any of these stuff isn't supported by MS)