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can a dell poweredge 2600 run windows 7?
I have a dell powerdege 2600, I would like to install windows 7 on it (not for desktop use) i was planning on turning it into a server for a game running on windows 7. It has two duel core 3.2 (?) xeon processors in it, along with 4 gigs of ram. If i can not install windows 7, would Microsoft server 2003 (what was originally installed on it) be able to run as a game server? All advice would be most appreciated!
theflash1932
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April 6th, 2013 21:00
"It has two duel core 3.2 (?) xeon processors"
No, it has two 3.2GHz 32-bit Xeon processors that "may" support hyper-threading (which would appear as a total of 4 processors in Task Manager). This system is too old to support actual dual-core processors.
Know that Windows 7 is not supported on the 2600, which simply means that Dell does not have drivers for it. You can probably use the 2008x86 drivers for any devices that go unknown. If you have an ERA card installed, there will not be an acceptable driver for it, as it is installed with the management software, OMSA (OpenManage Server Administrator), which will only install on a supported (Server) OS.
Unsupported doesn't mean it won't work, so it may do just fine. The video performance will be pretty poor, so if you only need the server to crunch numbers, then it should be ok, but if it must supply video processing too, it may not work. The onboard video chip probably has 16MB of video memory, and most add-in graphics cards will not work.
2003 is fully supported on the machine, but hard to say if your game will run on it ... but there is little a client OS can do that a server OS cannot.
FYI ... the 2600 is also limited to 32-bit OS's.
freakoutlikeme
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April 8th, 2013 15:00
so what you're saying is the poweredge can accept windows 7 but some drivers aren't accreted by it? explain the 2008x86, is that the server 2008 or a different kind of driver for it.
theflash1932
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April 8th, 2013 16:00
Server 2008 comes in 32-bit (called x86) and 64-bit (called x64). Server 2008R2 comes in ONLY 64-bit. Server 2008R2 is based on the same kernel as Windows 7, so it is better to use 2008R2 drivers in the absence of Windows 7-specific drivers, but since you can't install 64-bit on the 2600 and 2008R2 is only 64-bit, then you have to drop down to 2008 and try using the 32-bit/x86 drivers.
No, I'm not saying that you can install Windows 7 on ANY PowerEdge server ... I'm saying that you might be able to, or you might not. It is not supported, so unless someone tests it, there is no way to know for sure.
"some drivers aren't accreted by it"
Not sure I understand what you mean by this.