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I have been using Windows XP for many years as a development environment. I now need to get a much faster machine, with more cores and am considering a 4-socket machine so I can have 16 physical cores. Unfortunately it seems that normal windows can not handle more than two sockets and my only choice is to get a copy windows server. I have never used windows server before - is it just windows with the ability to use more sockets or is there something more fundamentally different? I have a huge variety of software on my XP machine - should it all work?

EDIT: I'm slightly concerned that its going to be super-security conscious (which I won't be) and it's going to make me jump through hoops getting "permission" to do every little thing and make me type in long passwords every five minutes.

Mick
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1 Answers1

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You'd need to double check the compatibility for each program, but the vast majority (if not all) should "just work".

At a previous job different developers had different versions of Windows installed (XP, Vista, 7, 64 bit 7, Server 2008) and we didn't have any problems running Visual Studio, browsers or other tools.

If you can run 2 machines and keep the second on XP you'll have a fall back position for any apps that don't work.

As far as permissions go, it's on a par with Windows 7 (from what I remember). I didn't use it myself, but those that did had the same "run as administrator" issues I did on Windows 7.

ChrisF
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  • ahh, with a gazillion of precessor cores, i'm pretty sure any program incompatibility can be remedied with some virtual machine. +1 anyway :) –  Jan 15 '10 at 12:24
  • Some of the Server security settings are irritating for developers, but most can be fixed if you spend time editing the registry. If it's too big an issue though, take Molly's suggestion and spin up a VM (that's what I do)... – Brian Knoblauch Jan 15 '10 at 14:55
  • @brian... you're frightening me now... editing the registry? Is that really the only way? – Mick Jan 15 '10 at 15:42
  • I love this guy's attitude! – surfasb Jul 01 '11 at 19:21