[DUG] Planning PC upgrade - Delphi IDE options

[Colin Johnsun]

Hi John,

I use Delphi inside a VM for the last four years except my VMs are hosted
on a Mac (MacBook Pro to be precise) using VMWare Fusion (the mac
equivalent to VMWare Workstation). My answers are embedded below under each
of your questions.

On 29 April 2013 10:17, John Bird <johnkbird at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

>
> Checking the options:
>
> Q1 – is there any advantage to running the Delphi IDE in a 64 bit
> environment (ie is any of the IDE 64 bit), or is 32 bit fine.   Have D2007
> and XE2 at present.   Likely to upgrade to whatever upcoming version allows
> Android development to save having to learn Java etc, and also Objective C
> for iPhone.   (As long as its feasible and workable that is)
>

Delphi works in either 32-bit or 64-bit Windows. You can still develop
64-bit Windows applications on a 32-bit Windows machine but you won't be
able to run the applications on your computer except through using the
remote debugger to a host machine running 64-bit Windows. So unless you are
planning to develop 64-bit Windows apps you can stick to 32-bit Windows.


>
> Q2 – related – if I run a Delphi IDE VM in VMWare workstation any versions
> of VMWare are there any advantages of 32bit 64bit versions of Windows
> VMs?   At present plans would be to run 32 Windows 7 VM – unless there is a
> reason to do otherwise (eg 64 bit).   At present VMWare 6 or 7.   If base
> PC is Windows 8 64 bit does this change anything – ie better to get later
> VMWare workstation 8 or 9?
>
>
I have Delphi 2010 in a Win XP (32-bit) VM and Delphi XE2 in a Win7
(64-bit) VM. I've found no difference in containing Delphi in either
environments except that 64-bit windows requires a larger size VM (40-60GB)
vs 32-bit XP (8-12GB). As I don't plan to do anything in 64-bit at the
moment, I think I will stick to 32-bit Windows VMs.

The only reason why I may use a 64-bit Windows VM is if I require to
install the latest version Visual Studio which I think requires 64-bit
Windows 7 as a minimum. But for plain old Delphi (any version) then I would
stick with a 32-bit VM as it requires less space.

Related to Q1, if you do decide to build 64-bit Windows applications, you
can still use a 32-bit Windows VM so long as your host PC is running 64-bit
Windows. In this case, you can then use your host PC as the environment to
run your 64-bit app in remote debug mode.


> Q3 – any advantages of Windows 7 vs Windows 8
>

No idea - I've bought Win8 but still haven't installed it yet.


>
> Q4 – Delphi IDE in host or VM pros and cons.   I have seen that many
> recommend running Delphi IDE in a VM.   Personally I in the past favoured
> running Delphi IDE on the host PC but open to being convinced otherwise.
>
>     pros of Delphi IDE on host PC:
>         a – Faster and simpler operation on host PC (one less layer to go
> wrong)
>         b – if few extra installed components quick to uninstall and
> reinstall whole of Delphi if something goes wrong.
>
>     pros of VM:
>         a – make a standard setup VM
>         b – can reset to standard setup VM
>


My Mac has an Intel i7 Processor with 8GB RAM runniing on an SSD. It is
fast enough to run my VM with other (Mac) applications running in other
processes. It has never felt slow actually I've found it to be quite fast.
Especially the fact that I rarely actually "shut down" my VM. I usually
"suspend" it when I quit my VMs. When I restart my VM, it opens up to where
I last left it which is usually a matter of seconds.

Other advantages of using VMs is that I only have one version of Delphi in
a VM so I never have any problems which conflicting versions of Delphi in
the one environment.

Even though I use a Mac, I would still consider using a VM if my host was a
Windows PC as the convenience of having a "clean" development which can be
snapshot, rewound, and in some cases transportable is incredibly handy.

Regards,
Colin
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