What version of windows do I need to develop with .NET 4 and C#?

I开发者_StackOverflow am planning on starting to develop with C# and .NET. I have a Mac and need to buy a copy of windows 7 to use with bootcamp. Do I need Windows 7 Ultimate or can I develop just fine with the Home edition? Do I loose any features on the development end with Home edition?

Thanks!

Frankie

You need Windows XP SP3, Vista SP1 or 2, or Windows 7 in order to install .Net 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.

The edition (Home, Professional, etc...) is completely irrelevant, except that Windows XP Home does not support IIS. (Vista & 7 Home Basic do)
Even that is now less relevant with IIS Express

Development features are based on your IDE version not your OS version. AFAIK .NET is the same for all versions of Windows. You can develop just fine on a Home version, in fact Windows XP would work too.

Here is a chart by Microsoft that compares the versions http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

Depending on the type of applications you plan on developing, you could stick with just using Mac OS X by installing Mono and MonoDevelop. Mono is an open-source, cross-platform, implementation of C# and the CLR that is binary compatible with Microsoft.NET. MonoDevelop is an an open-source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.

You don't necessarily need to have Windows to develop .NET applications. If it's not an option now, at least you're aware of the projects.

I run Windows XP on my MacBook using VMware. Not sure if you can do that to program .Net?