I have a production server, that is used for MS SQL Server Databases.
The machine specs are:
– Intel Xeon E5410 CPU with (EM64T)
– 4 GB RAM
– SCSI HDDs in RAID mode
It currently has:
– Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2 (32bit)
– SQL Server 2005 (9.0.3080) (32 bit) as the default instance.
– SQL Server 2008 (10.0.1600) (32 bit) as a named instance "SQL2008".
I need to upgrade the SQL Server 2008 instance to 64 bit.
How do I do this?
I know that the OS needs to be 64 bit mode too. Can I do a upgrade of windows to Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit first or?
Best Answer
You'll basically need to make a back up of the existing databases, then rebuild the server using Windows Server 2008 R2 and install SQL Server 2008 x64. Windows doesn't support changes in the bit-ness of the OS when performing an upgrade; no 32 bit upgrades to 64 bit.