A Comparison of SQL Server 7.0 with SQL Server 2000

By : Sergey Vartanyan May 31, 2002

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Should you stick with SQL Server 7.0, or spend the big bucks to move to SQL Server 2000? To help you make your decision, here are some things to think about.

Hardware and Software Requirements Comparison

To install SQL Server 7.0, you should have the following hardware:

• Alpha AXP, Intel or compatible platform.
  
  
• Pentium 166 MHz or higher (Pentium Pro, Pentium II and compatible).
  
  
• 32MB RAM (minimum), 64MB RAM and more (recommended).
  
  
• 180MB (full installation), 170MB (typical), 65MB (minimum), 90MB (management tools only) plus 50MB for OLAP Services and 12MB for the English Query.

SQL Server 7.0 can work under Windows 95, Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, Windows NT Server/Workstation 4.0 with Service Pack 4 and Windows 2000 (all editions).

SQL Server 7.0 also requires Internet Explorer 4.01 with Service Pack 1 or later, or Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.

To install SQL Server 2000, you should have the following hardware:

• Intel or compatible platform.
  
  
• Pentium 166 MHz or higher (Pentium II, Pentium III and compatible).
  
  
• 32MB RAM (minimum for Desktop Engine), 64MB RAM (minimum for all other editions) 128 MB RAM or more recommended.
  
  
• 270MB (full installation), 250MB (typical), 95MB (minimum), 44 MB (Desktop Engine) plus Analysis Services: 50 MB minimum and 130 MB typical and 80MB for the English Query.

SQL Server 2000 will run under Windows 98, Windows NT Server 4.0 with Service Pack 5 or later, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 with Service Pack 5 or later and Windows 2000 (all editions).

SQL Server 2000 also requires Internet Explorer 5.0 or later, as it is required for Microsoft Management Console and HTML Help. Internet Explorer is not required to be the default browser and a minimal install is sufficient.

If your hardware is not really big enough to run SQL Server 2000 properly, and you are not able to upgrade your hardware, then you seriously should consider sticking with SQL Server 7.0 until you can upgrade your hardware.

SQL Server 7.0 Advantages

• SQL Server 7.0 can work on less powerful hardware.
  
  
• There are many books and web resources about SQL Server 7.0.
  
  
• There are many people who work with SQL Server 7.0.
  
  
• Many bugs were fixed (SP5 is available).
  
  
• SQL Server 7.0 can work on the Alpha AXP platform.
  
  
• SQL Server 7.0 has some features, which are not supported in SQL Server 2000.

These server configuration options are not supported in SQL Server 2000:

• default sortorder id
  
  
• resource timeout
  
  
• extended memory size
  
  
• spin counter
  
  
• language in cache
  
  
• time slice 
  
  
• language neutral full-text
  
  
• unicode comparison style 
  
  
• max async IO
  
  
• unicode locale id

SQL Profiler extended stored procedures, such as xp_trace_addnewqueue and xp_trace_generate_event, are not supported in SQL Server 2000. 

The SQL-SCM (Service Control Manager) API has been removed and is no longer supported in SQL Server 2000.

So, if you work with SQL Server 7.0 and don't have any problems, and you don't need the new SQL Server 2000 features (listed below), it's not necessary to upgrade to the new version at all.