Hey all,

I got two questions, but before I start, I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Frederik and I am from austria. I want to start developing ASP.NET web applications. Because those will most likely be hosted on a Windows 2008 R2 server, I thought it would be the best to use this OS for developing.

Before I set up my new developing environment I got two questions: Will my hardware be capable of running Windows Server 2008 R2 smoothly? I am using a notebook with an Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 (1400 MHz) and 4 GB main memory. I am currently using Windows 7 Professional x86 together with Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional, SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition and IIS7 and everything is working fine now.

The second thing is, that there is only a x64 version of Windows Server 2008 R2 available. I heard, that the drivers I have to use must be designed for x64. But the x86 applications, if they aren't using built-in x86 drivers, should run because of WOW (Windows on Windows). I did read, because x86 programs will be emulated, there could be a performance decrease running those programs. But on the other hand there are a few circumstances that could cause a performance increase, especially running x86 programs which consume a high amount of memory. I don't know what I should believe now. What are your experiences regarding to that? I want to make sure, that I am able to work properly with the system I will set up. Most of the programs I use are x86. I can't afford to upgrade them to x64.

Thanks for your time


EDIT: I misplaced that topic somehow, sorry. It would be nice if someone could move it to the proper location .

Your PC is powerful enough to run this OS smoothly for sure.
I can't answer you to your second question. Personally I don't think there is any big difference between running x86 apps on x86 and x64 Windows.

I can tell you from personal experience on a Dell Latitude E5400 with a Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.0GHz and 2GB of main memory my machine booted up in over a minute on R2. I had Windows 7 professional x86 the same you have now and it booted up in under 35 seconds. It felt faster on x86 hardware on a dual core laptop. It was able to run 64-bit R2 O.K but i wouldn't say it was glamorous. 7 felt faster on 32-bit hardware in my case. To tell you the truth its not the matter of whether or not you can run it but whether or not you have sufficient reasons enough to warrant a complete overhaul of your system. For example if you got a brand new car that gets 40MPG and it runs beautiful why do you need the next year model that gets 2 MPG more. Sure you've got an upgrade of 2MPG but is it enough to buy a completely new car? Probably not.

My question to you would be: Can you perform all of your desired tasks on your current OS?

If so, just stick with Windows 7 Professional.

As far as your 2nd question is concerned there is a slight performance degrade but its very unnoticeable. Your advantage would be that windows would now be able to address the full 4GB address space.

Can you run Windows Server 2008 R2? Yes. Would I recommend it in your situation. Probably not.

Hey, thanks for the responses.

I thought, that I could avoid some compatibility problems when moving those web applications from one OS to another. Basically, I can perform every task using Windows 7 Professional too. I just heard that the two behave differently in some ways, especially when deploying applications which are supposed to run on a server.
If that fear is arbitrary then you are right, I don't need a server OS. Is it possible to set up every web-based service, like FTP or SMTP, for testing purposes on Windows 7 as I could on a server OS, or are there any disadvantages? Can I use IIS 7.5 with all its functions the same way on Windows 7 Professional as I could on Windows Server 2008 R2?