As with the vast majority of projects I've worked on, developers working on my current project are using their dev tools directly on their machine, as opposed to developing within a virtual machine (VM) care of Virtual PC . I admit that I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with Virtual PC; but, in the end, I'm typically glad I have things setup that way. Initial start-up time will sometimes be slow when compared to local development because I'll have to load up a saved VM, but when things go haywire or when it comes time for cleanup, I'm usually very thankful to have the VM in a single file that I can delete, if necessary. The ability to simply move that file around and delete it to start from scratch is very valuable to me. Honestly, whether you like VMs or not, what I'm working on now goes beyond that. I need to create a "standard" development environment we can pass on to new developers. With that, I plan on compiling a list of the most valuable development tools and utilities to add to the VM. Of course, I plan on starting with Scott Hanselman's  Ultimate Developer and Power User Tools List  as well as my personal favorites , which I'll be upgrading as I work thru this. If anyone has any special tools they like, I'd love to hear about them. Once I come up with the version 1.0 list of what will be included, I'll make sure to post it.