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Next I attacked SQL 2005. As per documentation this needs SP2 to run on Vista. I hence downloaded and installed SP2. I had earlier tried configuring SQL and the only thing that had given trouble was Reporting Services. Since the documentation on VS2005 talked about running it as Adminstrator, I decided to run Reporting Services Configuration tool as Administrator. During configuration I ran into issues related to managed pipeline mode setting. The Default web site that runs under the DefaultAppPool runs under Integrated setting, while reporting services needs the Classic mode. So I created a new web site and marked it to run under Classic .Net AppPool and then configured the virtual server and directories for the Reporting services on this new web site. One point to note is avoid enabling "Apply Default Settings" since this causes the application pool to be reset to DefaultAppPool and this causes runtime error due to managed pipeline mode setting.

With all this done, I was finally able to get VS2005 and SQL 2005 along with Reporting Services to run successfully on Vista RTM.

29 Nov 2006: A point to note however is that you need to evaluate the need for SP for your usage. Like VS 2005 SP is required when working with Smart devices or some specific C++ programming. Usually running VS 2005 or SQL 2005 as Administrator will still provide basic functionality on Vista, which should be sufficient for normal usage.