Urgent: upgrade Windows 2003 SE to EE

[Former Member]

Is it possible to upgrade an SAP system from MS Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition to MS Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition. Currently we have a distrubuted system: Application systeem (SAP EP 7.0) on Windows 2003 ES and an database (Orcale) system on Windows 2003 SE as well. Can we upgrade the application server to the Enterprise Edition and will SAP still work or do we need to use a System Copy Scenario?

Any help will be highly appriciated!

Regards,

Frodo

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

Check note 313347 - Windows editions and memory support

I would suggest you do a system copy. It may be technically possible to upgrade but you will may have to fiddle with unsupported/not working drivers during installation.

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus,

Thanks. But wat do you mean with unsupported/not working drivers during installation? Only Windows will be upgraded, no SAP installation will take place in this scenario.

Regards,

Frodo

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

You have a certain version of Windows installed actually - patched up with security patches and maybe operating system patches and also drivers.

If you now take a standard Windows 2003 CD, it will maybe be technically able to upgrade but since Windows "tights up everything" into registry, dependent files on the filesystem the system may be on an older state (speaking of security- and operating system patches) than it is now and thus drivers may or may not work.

You can, however, take an OS backup (best from another Windows instance on the same machine) and try to upgrade. In case it works, you're done. In case is does not work, you can reset to the old.

Markus

[Former Member]

the big question is:

why do you want to upgrade the Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition to Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition?

you are running a 7.0 based system and you should therefore definitely go for a 64 Bit Operating System version, if your hardware supports 64 Bit (in most cases it does).

regards

Peter

[Former Member]

Hi Peter,

Your definately right, we know 64bit is better and they will move to 64bit but this move can be considered a workaround.

Regards,

Frodo

[Former Member]

you still did not tell us why you are planing to upgrade to EE?

there are typically two reasons:

- maximum physical memory supported by the 32 Bit OS (the X64 SE version supports more than 4 GB!!)

- you are going to use Cluster Servers.

peter

[Former Member]

Peter,

It's because of the amount of memory supported by the SE version (only 4GB). They want to move to 64bit but SAP doesn't seem to support a productive system (which is the case) when all other systems are on on 32bit SE.

Cheers!

Frodo

[Former Member]

in the ABAP world we definitely support mixed 32/64 Bit systems - out of the box without any additional

manual steps during the installation.

The J2EE engine supports also a mix of different platforms (unix and windows app-servers).

Therefore I do not see any reason why this should not work and currently do not know where it is

written that a 32/64 Bit mix is not supported. If you can point me to the doc - I will revise this.

700 based production systems (both ABAP and J2EE) are a night mare on 32 Bit (you will not stop tuning for virtual

address space until you have upgraded to 64 Bit).

regards

Peter