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I was looking for the proper version of Win 2008 R2 to download, and cannot find a 32 bit. Is it 64-bit only? I'm still on a 32-bit machine, going to run it under VMWare. Do I need to go back to the original Win 2008 (i.e. the one before R2)?

NealWalters
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As of Server 2008 R2, Microsoft is no longer shipping 32-bit versions of their Server operating systems. Yes, this does indeed put a maximum version limit on 32-bit only hardware! We can't upgrade our Domain Controllers to R2 because of this, we need new hardware for it. Those old Pentium 4's won't handle 64-bit.

sysadmin1138
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    There's a lot of software starting at the end of last year that is 64-bit only. Notably: Exchange 2007, the Dynamics line, ForeFront (Server services only), and many require 64-bit SQL Server. For the most part, only the home products are still actively developing 32-bit versions, and that is likely to end in the next year or two (I'd speculate Office will have one more version that's 32-bit, but Windows will not). – Chris S Aug 23 '10 at 17:20
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    Those bastards! Expecting you to deploy a new server OS on hardware that is less than seven years old! – rmalayter May 26 '11 at 03:00