Want to develop for the latest version of Plone on Windows? Use a VirtualBox.
Want to do it and be able to edit source files and configuration with your Windows editor? To be able to run buildout and Plone with Windows command? Try PloneDev-Vagrant.
PloneDev-Vagrant is a kit for setting up a — hopefully — easy to use development environment for Plone in a hosted virtual machine.
The kit uses the VirtualBox for the virtual machine and the Vagrant box setup system. It should run on any host machine for which Vagrant is available; that includes Windows, OS X and Linux. Both VirtualBox and Vagrant are open-source.
The PloneDev-Vagrant kit is meant to be easy to setup and use. Plone's key development files are set up to be accessible and editable with host-based editors. Host commands are provided to run Plone and buildout. So little or no knowledge of the VirtualBox guest environment (which happens to be Ubuntu Linux) should be required.
This is a test
PloneDev-Vagrant is meant to bridge the gap between Plone's old Windows installer, which is not available for current versions of Plone, and a forthcoming, improved installer (Ross Patterson's project).
Is it practical? Does it do what you need to develop (or evaluate) on Windows? There's only one way to find out: try it! File a ticket if it needs something (issue tracker URL in the readme). Let me know in an email or on IRC how it's going. If it works and folks really use it, it'll get maintained for future Plone releases.