Installing SQL 2005 64bit on 32bit OS for testing purpose?

Alex_Chow

Is it possible to install SQL Server 2005 64bit version on a Windows Server 2003 32bit server? Will SQL Server 64bit stop installation on a 32bit CPU?

This is just for testing and is not going to be used in the production environment.

davmac1

No

DenSter

Alex, I thought what you wanted to do is have a 64bit prod environment, and a 32bit test environment, and you were asking if you could use a database backup from one and use it on the other. You'd have to install 64bit SQL on prod and 32bit SQL on test, because the 'bitness' is not compatible with each other, the software bitness has to match the OS bitness.

The question would then be: can I use a database backup from my 64bit environment and restore it into my 32bit environment.

Alex_Chow

DenSter wrote:

Alex, I thought what you wanted to do is have a 64bit prod environment, and a 32bit test environment, and you were asking if you could use a database backup from one and use it on the other. You'd have to install 64bit SQL on prod and 32bit SQL on test, because the 'bitness' is not compatible with each other, the software bitness has to match the OS bitness.

The question would then be: can I use a database backup from my 64bit environment and restore it into my 32bit environment.

Oh ok, thanks for the correction.

bbrown

The database does not differ between the 32 and 64 bit versions. Moving databases between the versions is not a problem. In fact, we have a mirror running with a 64 bit primary and a 32 bit backup

64 bit SQL must run on 64 bit Windows

32 bit SQL can run on 32 or 64 bit Windows

Waldo

bbrown wrote:

The database does not differ between the 32 and 64 bit versions. Moving databases between the versions is not a problem. In fact, we have a mirror running with a 64 bit primary and a 32 bit backup

I can confirm this!

DenSter

I thought it would work, I just wasn't sure. Cool