SharePoint development has always been a little difficult because WSS and MOSS have to be installed on a server. This requirement forced developers to uses Virtual PC's with Windows Server and SharePoint installed as their environment to develop for SharePoint. Many bloggers have discussed this option as not being a good development platform.

Now, thanks to the people over at Bamboo Solutions, developers can now install WSS 3.1 or MOSS on Vista x86 or x64 and begin their SharePoint development. Of course this option is not supported by Microsoft, so you use with caution. Bamboo Solutions provides a tool that you install that allows you to install WSS or MOSS on Vista. Your Vista machine does not have to be a part of a domain to be able to use this tool.

You can download and find more information about this tool by clicking here.