DO these versions mean anything to me as a developer? I understand they have limitations on connections/processors/etc but none of that matters to me for a local development instance. All of the ISOs on MSDN are the same size, does it make a difference which of these I choose to download?
+1
A:
Developer is fine for development but can't be used in production systems for lisencing reasons. It's a lot cheaper than the others too.
HLGEM
2009-12-03 22:22:13
+3
A:
The Developer edition is identical to the Enterprise edition, so you get all the feature you'll probably ever need. It's just not licensed for production use.
Standard edition (and Web edition) are somewhat limited in their functionality.
Developer edition is available at $49 in the US, so I'd definitely pick that one, if you need a dev platform!
marc_s
2009-12-03 22:23:30
Cost is of no importance as I have an MSDN subscription, but thank you for clearing it up.
jcm
2009-12-03 23:06:37
Keep in mind that all MSDN licenses are only good for development; you can't put an MSDN Enterprise edition into public use; the licenses are single-user only.
RickNZ
2009-12-04 10:21:05
+2
A:
The difference is in licensing mostly (Developer vs. Enterprise).
For development you wish to have the engine with all bells and whistles enabled, that is either Enterprise or Developer.
If you're only developing for customers then Developer will suffice. You hand-over the project to the customer and don't put it to operation yourself.
If it's your own product, then you will need un-Developer version sooner or later. By the moment of putting the software in production latest, that is.
Developer Art
2009-12-03 22:23:47
Ah I see. So if this was for a test server that could turn in to a production one, I would use Enterprise. Then once we are ready to put it in production we would simply purchase and enterprise license and we wouldn't have to change anything?
jcm
2009-12-03 23:05:08
A:
Use the development version as it will allow you to develop with features that are available on all of the production versions. If you were to install say just the Standard version then you would be unable to develop anything that uses an Enterprise feature.
http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/compare-features.aspx
Firestrand
2009-12-03 22:25:19