For as long i can remember i have had my main dev machine (Laptop) running some type of server operating system. This has been traditionally because i have been developing for Sharepoint and Citrix and those have never been able to install on a client OS like vista or XP. For me, this has been somewhat frustrating because I always end up wanting to play around with the new API's/features that inherently come with a new operating system.
Well thanks to our friends over at Bamboo Nation You can now run WSS SP1 on you vista machine (Both x86 and x64)!! They have created a small installer that looks like it sets some reg keys (along with a lot of other stuff, I'm sure) to allow you to install WSS on your vista device. Check out this how-to article to get up and running. Based on the article please post your experience in their forums as they would like as much feedback as possible so they can enhance the installer.
Update- I have run the installer and now i have WSS sp1 running on my vista64 device. WhaHoo!!!... I think this is a great step for us developers, now we can develop and test on the same device, althoughi am still going to keep my VPC lab up and running since it has a AD domain and exchange, oh..... and i still do some citrix dev too :).