Windows Server 2008 Requirements

Installing Windows Server 2008 is pretty straightforward and is very much like installing Windows Vista, but I thought I'd list the necessary steps here for additional information. For those of you who have never installed Vista before, the entire installation process is different than it used to be in previous Microsoft operating systems, and notably much easier to perform.

Note: Windows Server 2008 can also be installed as a Server Core installation, which is a cut-down version of Windows without the Windows Explorer GUI. Because you don’t have the Windows Explorer to provide the GUI interface that you are used to, you configure everything through the command line interface or remotely using a Microsoft Management Console (MMC). The Server Core can be used for dedicated machines with basic roles such as Domain controller/Active Directory Domain Services, DNS Server, DHCP Server, file server, print server, Windows Media Server, IIS 7 web server and Windows Server Virtualization virtual server. For Server Core installations please see my "Installing Windows Server 2008 Core" article.

To use Windows Server 2008 you need to meet the following hardware requirements:

Component Requirement
Processor • Minimum: 1GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4GHz (x64 processor) • Recommended: 2GHz or faster Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
Memory • Minimum: 512MB RAM • Recommended: 2GB RAM or greater • Maximum (32-bit systems): 4GB (Standard) or 64GB (Enterprise and Datacenter) • Maximum (64-bit systems): 32GB (Standard) or 2TB (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-based Systems)
Available Disk Space • Minimum: 10GB • Recommended: 40GB or greater Note: Computers with more than 16GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files
Drive DVD-ROM drive
Display and Peripherals • Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor • Keyboard • Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device


Upgrade notes:

I will not discuss the upgrade process in this article, but for your general knowledge, the upgrade paths available for Windows Server 2008 shown in the table below:

If you are currently running: You can upgrade to:
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2) Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2) Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)