Lately I have been working on a Sharepoint project.
Sharepoint developers have two main choices:
(i) Develop natively on a server OS (which my IT Helpdesk does not support)
(ii) Develop on a virtual pc (which can be slow).
Sharepoint developer’s tend to be at least familiar with the vpc.
This is a solution to a common problem with vpc’s.
Typically one developer sets up the vpc then gives a copy to the next person to join the team.
You need to play games about leaving/rejoining domains and renaming machines.
One thing that you also need to do is to delete the ethernet_card_address entry in the vmc file (it is just xml).
You may also need to see this. That fixes the names that sql server stores in the registry.
Developer Rants 