For the last month or so, I've been working with Reporting Services reports using a virtual PC with WIndows XP. Why? Because I'm developing reports against Analysis Services (OLAP cubes), and didn't have access to the cubes from outside my customer's AD Domain. So basically my choices were adding my laptop to the domain, or have a virtual PC and add that to the domain. In theory, this works great. I've set up my VM to use files on my laptop harddisk, so I can access these files even without running the VM. Very handy for backups or moving my reports.
Unfortunately, this VM is really not very stable. Or rather, my installation of Visual Studio .NET 2003 is rather unstable. I need to reboot the VM 3-4 times in one day. More often if I'm stupid enough to actually do "Preview" in Report Designer. Sometimes it just crashes and restarts, "forgetting" any new reports added since last "Save all". That took me a while to figure out... But the worst thing is when it just stops saving my changes. Without giving me any kind of notice at all. So when I upload the report to the report manager, it just shows whatever it showed 10 minutes ago. Like the first static query I did just to fill the report, not the dynamic one with 5 instances of Parameters!Transactions.Value. Fortunately, I've figured out what to do when that happens. No use in trying to save. Just copy and paste your query into Notepad, and restart Visual Studio. Sometimes I even restart the whole VM. (As I'm writing, I'm working on some reports. I've restarted VS once just while writing this piece... Or make that twice. And a reboot.)
Speaking of copy and pasting... I use my keyboard shortcuts a lot. Especially marking text and jumping back and forth with Shift and Ctrl and arrows. But not in Virtual PC. Or Virtual Server, I think. So then I have to use my mouse for all copy and pasting. Not good.
Still, when it works, it's a cool thing to work with. But if I ever have to work primarily on a Virtual Machine again, I'll spend that extra time tweaking it and maybe reinstall VS if it's acting up. It might be lack of memory that messes up the VM, but it's not too much to do about that. :(