Questions on system requirements for Exchange 2007

Hello everyone. First of all, here is my setup. The physical host machine is a Pentium 4 with a 32 bit operating system (Vista Home Basic). I have been using Virtual PC with 32 bit guest operating systems (Server 2003 Enterprise and XP Pro).

I did some browsing of the MS Press 70-236 book tonight in the bookstore. Didn't buy it yet because of the following concerns/questions:

Exchange 2007 requires a 64 bit version of Server 2003. It is my understanding that I will need to install a 64 operating system on the host machine

Questions are:
1) Can Virtual PC 2007 handle 64 bit guest operating systems?
2) If not, what would you recommend for virtual machine software
3) Are 64 bit evaluation copies of Server 2003 available in MS Press books or online?

I will be researching TechNet in the meantime. Look forward to your replies.

Thank you,
Steve

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Chivalry1

Microsoft offers a 32-Bit Evaluation version of Exchange 2007.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4c4bd2a3-5e50-42b0-8bbb-2cc9afe3216a&displaylang=en&Hash=4Tr1UvqaB50WVt1E%2bSDarz6XxCIICXQCGcY0tqb4kC3ZHxfODreaiAJsrzLqWXB6ZxLlYUizSnA086Vj7rovZg%3d%3d

Or could install free VMServer and run the trail Exchange 2007 virtual machine.
I would make sure that you have at least 4 gigs of memory on the host system.

blargoe

I don't remember whether VPC supports 64-bit VM's , but your host has be be running 64-bit windows to support 64-bit VM's, regardless of the virtualization software you are using.

Like Chivalry said, you can get a 32-bit version for evaluation purposes from Microsoft's web site that times out in 180 days... or at least you could... not sure if they would have yanked it in favor of 2010 or not...

sschmidlap

Thank you for the help everyone. As usual, advice was spot on excellent. Virtual PC cannot run 64 bit guests, but VMWare Player can and it's free. Unfortunately, I don't have a 64 bit eval copy of Server 2003, but I do for Server 2008 so I guess I can use that when it comes to setting up Exchange 2007.

I just upgraded my host machine to XP Pro 64 bit last night as blargoe alluded to in order to run 64 bit guests. As far as the eval copy, I am going to just buy the MS Press books as they always include a disc. I am going to start with Exchange 2003. I got the MS Press book for Exchange 2003 (installing, configuring) for only 8 dollars new!

Funny you mention the RAM. I was afraid that might be a roadblock. Even though I have a 64 bit processor the manufacturer website claims a max of 2 Gig Ram. I find that odd. Seems like a 64 bit system should support more than that. Am I right, wrong, crazy? All I know is there are 2 memory slots currently holding 1 Gig each DDR2 Ram.

blargoe

I think that is a little odd.

For Exch 2003 you could probably get away with 2GB if you're doing the exercises in the book... when 2003 came out 2GB was a pretty nice machine, that's probably better than what I had on the classroom machine I used when I was training on it.