With all the beta products I work with, using Virtual PC has become my main mode of project development. And while using VPC, I have noticed that Windows 2003 Server performs a lot better than Windows XP as a guest OS for perf and file size. So now I only use Windows 2003 Server. Not really that different to dev with, I do have one annoyance with Win 2k3 that I can do without and that's the Shutdown Event Tracker. It's great if you are running an organization that needs to manage server realibilty, but when you are turning VPC's on and off all day long... not a lot of use for it. Of course, MSFT has this on by default as it does serve its purpose. But if you don't need it like I don't, how do you turn it off?

1. From Window's Start menu, select Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
2. From the Group Policy Object Editor, expand Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System
3. Double-click Display Shutdown Event Tracker from the System Setting list
4. Select the Disabled option button
5. Click OK
6. Close Group Policy Object Editor