64-bit only is coming….

I’ve been working on a talk that I’ll be giving to the Dallas next month to the Dallas/Fort Worth User’s group (more on that in another post) and I ran across confirmation of something I’ve been telling students for over a year now. When you are buying new hardware for a SharePoint installation, you should ALWAYS buy 64-bit hardware.  Yes, I know mixing and matching 64 and 32 bit servers in a SharePoint role isn’t recommended, but you should still try to make all new purchases 64-bit.  Why?  Because SharePoint makes extensive use of RAM for almost everything it does.  The minimum SharePoint server I recommend anymore has 4GB RAM in it, and that’s the maximum for 32-bit hardware.  But more importantly take a look at the following quote from the White Paper that Microsoft recommends everyone read BEFORE installing either SharePoint SP1 package.

“Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 are the last SharePoint Products and Technologies versions able to run on 32-bit hardware and operating systems.”

It’s now official.  The next version of SharePoint will be 64-bit only.  We’ve already seen this happen to Exchange and many have been predicting it would happen to SharePoint soon, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in print from an official Microsoft source.  You can find the full white paper here:  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=105704&clcid=0x409

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Paul Papanek Stork

I am a SharePoint MVP who has specialized in Microsoft products since the mid-1990s. As a "Jack of all Trades" I have developed expertise as a network administrator, developer, and DBA. I works as a consultant/trainer where my breadth of knowledge makes me ideally suited to combine Administrative, Development, and SharePoint Designer topics. My 20+ years of experience and broad background make me a much sought after resource for SharePoint questions that cross traditional boundaries. I was a contributing author to the Developer's Guide to Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform and the SharePoint Server 2007 Deployment Best Practices. My most recent book, the MCTS Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-631, was released in October, 2009.