I've recently rebuilt my laptop to run Windows 7. For the last year or so I have been using Windows 2008, so that I could run SharePoint natively and use Hyper-V. I gotta say that I'm pretty happy with the Windows 7 build. Getting things like Hibernate back has been nice and I have definitely noticed a performance increase. It's hard to know how much that is down to just having a fresh start. Either way, happy with the move.
So now I'm using a separate Hyper-V server that we have set up in our office. Managing this was a little tedious. I was using Remote Desktop to connect to the host, then launching the Hyper-V management console to create and change VMs. The Hyper-V Windows gadget simplified some of this work - http://mindre.net/post/Hyper-V-Monitor-Gadget-for-Windows-Sidebar.aspx.
Then I discovered that there is a download to allow you to manage Hyper-V directly from Windows 7, along with a bunch of other Windows Server management tasks such as AD users, SMTP and remote desktop services. My life has just got that little bit nicer:
Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d&displaylang=en
Windows Vista 64-bit Hyper-V Remote Management:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=88208468-0ad6-47de-8580-085cba42c0c2&displayLang=en
Windows Vista 32-bit Hyper-V Remote Management:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BF909242-2125-4D06-A968-C8A3D75FF2AA&displaylang=en
