[MS] is lately trying to go 64 bits with their OS. Vista x64 isn’t going anywhere due to the lack of 3rd party drivers (hey, it is hard to obtain even 32 bit drivers for Vista, you can forget about 64 bits for now). At least that’s my experience. But Vista is not a server OS. Server transition to 64 bits is a different story. They need huge amounts of RAM and you can use more than 4GB only with a 64 (or more) bit OS (running on 64 bit CPU of course). Though the truth is, that with current PC architecture you can hardly use even 3.5GB on an x86 OS. Let’s get back to servers. Servers usually use expensive serious hardware and not that desktop junk we all use. The hardware comes with better drivers and 64 bit drivers should be more easily accessible. The bottom line is that servers are more 64 bits motivated while desktop aren’t (one of the reason being there is no need for such huge memory size, at least for an average user).
Anyway, with such a push for 64 bit OS one would think that [MS] would provide their server products in both 32 and 64 bit flavor (if not just 64 bit). But hey, one of their big server products, Team Foundation Server 2005, won’t run on 64 bit OS. No way, its application tier needs good old x86. WTF? [MS] is pushing for 64 bits but at the same time their servers won’t run on 64 bit OS. OK, that was in the past and the only excuse I saw at the time was the lack of time for testing. Fast forward three years and meet TFS 2008 (in beta 2 currently). So far I didn’t find any indication (feature list posted here) that it is going to fully support 64 bit OS, even worse, I think I saw the same limitations in help file. I really hope it will support pure 64 bit OS, otherwise [MS] just shoot itself in the other foot. I wonder what’ll be the excuse this time…