Our office of 50 currently has 30 PC’s with W2k and 20 with XP. All are running Notes 7.03. We have one server, an AS/400, and it’s running Domino 7.03.
We are about to upgrade our server to Domino 8.5.1 and order our first batch of Window 7 PC’s running Notes 8.5.1 and Office 2007. I thought I’d tap into this forum’s vast knowledge for thoughts on config options.
A typical user will be using both Lotus Notes and MS Word all day long with dual monitors. Given this, here are my questions.
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32-bit or 64-bit Windows?
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If 32-bit, will 2 Gig of RAM be enough?
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If 64-bit, will 4 Gig of RAM be enough?
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Any other specs I should worry about?
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Will upgrading from the Intel GMA 4500 to a discrete graphics card make any real difference in performance in our office environment?
Subject: My 2 cents
I would choose 64 Bit Windows 7 (Professional or higher) with at least 4 GB RAM.As always the more RAM the better, but be aware that Notes 8.5.x is 32-Bit
AFAIK MS offers a 64 Bit version of its Office suite starting with Office2010, so Office2007 is 32-Bit, too.
So, these programs are still restricted to the 2 GB RAM per process limit, but due to improvements in the 64 Bit OS (memory pools, caching) it still makes sense to choose 64 Bit Windows 7.
But be aware of 64 Bit compatibility of all your software, esp. device drivers.
Lotus Notes 8.5.1 still has some problems with 64 Bit (Lotus Notes Single Logon [the client component]) does not work at all, pin to taskbar is not working 100 % robust, and other minor issues like Lotus Notes is not listed as Choice in the new Default programs selection dialog.
A specialized graphics device always improve performance, but as far as I remember benchmarks, on board graphics is sufficient for office workers (as long as they are not working with large images and 3D effects)
Subject: Lotus 8.5.1 FP3 using a 64 bit OS
We are running Windows XP 64 bit. Not sure what is teh standard RAM. We have been experiencing Notes performance issues with these users. They have roughly 10-15 second delay after clicking before there is a response. Have you seen anything similar?
Subject: Thoughts
Running Notes 8.5.1 with the Designer open takes about as much memory as watching a Netflix movie…roughly 150MB committed. Windows 7 itself uses far more memory, and it only takes a few browser windows to use as much or more memory than the Notes client.
Because of the lack of 64-bit programs, there’s no advantage, processing wise, to going with 64-bit Windows. However, with 4GB installed, 32-bit Windows is limited to just over 3GB available for programs, whereas 64-bit Windows will use the entire 4GB. Regardless of which OS, you should get 4 GB of RAM simply because new versions of applications just keep on using more and more memory. For example, Skype has 50MB committed on my machine and it’s not even doing anything. Memory is cheap enough that it shouldn’t make too big a difference in price. You don’t want to get 3GB because you want the memory to operate in Dual-Channel mode for speed.
Graphics used to be easy, but that changed with Windows Vista. Previously, only games and high-end image processing/architectural programs would use the graphics processing power of video cards. Business applications don’t use graphic processors. But Vista and Win7 will use the graphics card for windowing functions. Personally, I think the Win7 functions are interesting but I barely use them. If I were buying those computers I would get them with the built-in graphics only and disable Windows Aero.