>>>>>>64bit VS will not buy you anything. Ultimate has more features.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I want to upgrade to Visual Studio 2013. Which one is the best: Visual Studio Professional 2013 or Visual Studio Ultimate 2013? I also understand there is no x64 version for that one. Is that correct?
>>>>>
>>>>>Not questioning what you say other than to seek information on my understanding of what a 64bit program implies :
>>>>>
>>>>>If you have a box with 16gb of RAM why wouldn't a 64bit version of VS use more of that RAM and less disk IO? Or are you saying this is an OS issue (the addressing of RAM beyound 3gb) and is not dependant on the program itself having a 64 bit address space?
>>>>>
>>>>>If the latter, then 64bit SQL Server would be different because it is, in fact, a server and therefore is more like (part of) the OS in this regard?
>>>>
>>>>A 64-bit process may make use of more RAM than a 32-bit one. Whether it is designed to do so is another question. To avoid having 2 separate code bases the 64-bit version may just be a straight recompile of the 32-bit one.
>>>>
>>>>If you have a box with 16GB RAM and you have a few GB free, Windows will use that for a disk cache. That cache may be large enough for most or all VS components that are used but not permanently memory resident.
>>>
>>>OK, just to understand - if I have a 32 bit OS anything over 3gb is wasted , correct?
>>
>>Yes. Could actually be up to ~3.5GB depending on your graphics card.
>>
>>>But if I have a 64 bit OS what you have said above applies ( with Craig's post implying that VS the same in 32 or 64 )
>>
>>Yes.
>>
>>>As to SQL server, am I correct that it is optimized for 64 bit if you run 64bit on Win7 64 (or does that only matter in mult-processer scenarios etc?)
>>
>>I don't know about specific code optimization for 64 bit but it's possible. What it will do is use more RAM if it's available. Of course that's for versions other than Express, it is limited to 1GB RAM usage.
>
>Charles is a fan of software tools (as am I) so I can't imagine him using the express version of anything other than maybe for a look-see. I am not a proponent of the view that all software should be free. We don't work for free, do we?

Actually I'm a big believer in SQL Express for a lot of cases and even SDF files ( do they call that Compact now or something else?) As long as the code is written in a way that scales, starting out in SQL Express - especially in 12 where the limitations are much higher - it really not a bad idea. A whole lot of clients can do quite nicely with Express and if they need to upsize that app works the same way.

For Dev tools, of course, Express isn't even a consideration.