I'm currently looking for a webhost that offers Windows 2008 virtual or dedicated hosting for my ASP.NET app. On dedicated hosting you pay a monthly fee for Windows, I noticed there's a noticeable difference in cost between the web edition and the standard edition, so, my question is:
Does the standard edition come with MS Exchange? If so, is there any reliable equivalent in the web edition?
Thanks
No version of Windows Server 2008 OS (Web, Standard, Enterprise) comes with Exchange. They all have basic outgoing smtp capabilities but if your want imap, pop3, or webmail you need to look for a 3rd party product.
A popular free mail server is SmarterMail
As far as I know the web edition is only for hosting web sites. It does not include any mail server like exchange. It should have an smtp server and should be able to accept mail, but nothing like Exchange.
It might be possible to install a mail server on web edition, but I don't have enough knowledge to know for sure.
In past versions you could not install sql server on the web edition. I am not sure if that has changed.
Another good free email server is hMailServer. I've been using it, and its greylisting feature has really cut down on spam. However, I don't know if this will run on the web edition of Windows Server.
I just read on the SmartTools forum that SmarterMail will run on the web edition.
Does anything know the purpose of getting the Standard Edition of Server 2008 over the Web Edition? I am hosting ASP.NET websites with MySQL 5, SmarterMail and SmarterStats, and need 4 GB min of memory. Will the Web Edition work for this? Just want to make sure it doesn't block ports or anything. I read on another site that they don't allow you to run a mail server on the web edition. The price difference between the two is huge.