It sounds like there’s still a bit of confusion about which O/S platforms will be supported for the forth-coming SharePoint 2010.
The basic answer is “NO” to Windows Server 2003 – and also “NO” to any 32-bit platforms.
AND – the new developer story is for Windows Vista and Windows 7 – again, 64-bit only.
The official list of system requirements for SharePoint 2010 is located here.
The following is from the the Microsoft SharePoint Team blog :
Windows version/edition (64 bit only) |
SharePoint 2010 support |
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation |
No |
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard |
Yes |
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise |
Yes |
Windows Server 2008 R2 Data Center |
Yes |
Windows Web Server 2008 R2 |
No |
Windows HPC Server 2008 |
No |
Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based systems |
No |
Windows Server 2008 Standard |
Yes |
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise |
Yes |
Windows Server 2008 Data Center |
Yes |
Windows Web Server 2008 |
No |
Windows Storage Server 2008 |
No |
Windows Small Business Server 2008 |
Yes |
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 |
Yes |
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based systems |
No |
Windows Server 2008 Foundation |
No |
Windows Vista |
Developer-only** |
Windows 7 |
Developer-only** |
** Support for specific editions of Windows 7/Vista are yet to be finalized, but are likely to be ‘Business’/’Professional’ editions and above.
My choice from the above list would be Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise – it could be interesting to see some stats & number of what platform people are using.
…and would be interesting to also generate a pie chart for “virtualization platform” – how are you running your new SharePoint 2010 environment ?? HyperV, other (non-Microsoft) VM, boot-from-VHD, Windows-7, etc ?