The hard drive in my development box died last week, and although I’ll spare you the story of the replacement process, I thought it might be interesting to document the process of rebuilding my dev box, and provide color commentary while I’m at it.

1. Install Windows Vista (Business)
2. Get domain admin (my boss) to log in and connect my machine to the domain
3. Add my domain account as an administrator
4. Log out and log back in as my domain accout (it’s important to do this ASAP or I end up with shortcuts and things in the ‘root’ user account).
5. Adjust Windows settings (via “Programs and Features”) to include the IIS Features required for SQL Reporting services (*). I had to add the “Basic Authentication” to this list, I think, and I changed a few other features while I was in there … this actually required a reboot for some reason (presumably not because I added minesweeper and solitaire).
6. Install Windows PowerShell (in hopes of doing other things faster)
7. Create User Account for Sql Server to use
8. Install SQL Server (before Visual Studio, to avoid SQL Express and the resulting lack of SQL Manager)
9. While waiting for that, slow it down by copying my Projects, Documents, and Pictures folders over from the backup … I need my PowerShell profile and wallpaper before the defaults drive me insane.
10. Change my wallpaper and avatar (that orange flower is actually annoying).
11. Install Notepad++ (and copy userDefineLang.xml from backup for PowerShell scripts)
12. In order to finder Change Explorer settings to:
    1. Show Hidden files and folders
    2. NOT Hide extensions for known file types
    3. Hide protected operating system files (I leave this, because Vista has tons of hidden junction points (for compatability) in my user directory which are very distracting)
    4. Launch folder windows in a separate process (Explorer still crashes sometimes in Vista)

Some side notes:
I’m actually capable of compiling most of my projects (using MSBuild on the command line) without installing SQL Server, and the rest of them require third party controls which I will not install until after Visual Studio is installed. However, having installed SQL Client, Notepad++ and PowerShell I can actually edit, recompile, and run queries via PowerShell … so in an emergency, at this point I can start fixing bugs

Windows Vista, SQL Server, Visual Studio, and MS Office all want me to go online and check for service patches as soon as I install them. Since I feel fairly secure sitting behind my firewall, I don’t bother with this until all of them are installed — Microsoft Update will find and install all of the service packs in one fell swoop.

SQL Server and Visual Studio are the only two apps I install which have installers which are so badly behaved that I don’t even try to install them in my usual sub-folders (C:\Programs\DevTools\ in this case).. SQL Server, for instance, will make a “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\” folder no matter what you tell it during install, and nothing I’ve found can convince it to do otherwise, so I might as well install to that location, and not end up with multiple confusing folders (I’ll make junctions in C:\Programs\DevTools\ later to keep myself sane).

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