Project Deployment: Is a x64 Version of Project Required on a Workstation to Perform Certain Features with a x64 Project Server?

[BzowK]

Good Afternoon Guys / Niall -

I am the SCCM administrator for a company where I am constantly having to deploy Office 2013 products to workstations. When looking at the existing environment recently, I found out that there was a big mix of Project x86 & x64 installations on workstations. As I'm used to deploying x86 Office almost exclusively in corporate environments , I asked why. The reply I got was that someone was told that all workstations must have Project x64 installed in order to be able to use some/all features when accessing a x64 Project Server. Since you cannot have a mix of Office x86 & x64 products installed on the same workstation, this meant all who used Project (therefore having Project x64 installed) have also had to have an Office x64. This has caused a tremendous amount of headache!

My Question

My overall question is: Are there any features / processes a user may need to use which would require them to have Project x64 installed on their workstation to access a Project x64 Server installation or will an x86 version on their workstation allow them to perform all of the same tasks?

I never could find out who said it was required as it was before my time but if able to verify that Project x86 is 100% compatible; I plan to convert all existing x64 Office & Project installations to x86. We've done a little testing using a Project x86 client to connect to the server and everything so far seems to work well so know it at least paritally supports it. However, I don't know enough about how to use it to say with 100% certainty it would work - despite my opinion that x64 being required was a misunderstanding. I definitely want to find out before a conversion is planned, though, which is the reason for my post.

I did post this question to the Project TechNet forums thinking I'd get a fast and definate answer, but so far just speculation by an individual.

If in fact a x64 Project installation is required on a workstation for any reason, do you know what specific features it is required / not required for?

Thanks!!!

[GarthMJ]

Why would you convert x64 to x86? IMO this make no sense, why do you care if there is a mix of x86 and x64? IMO you should only have x64 unless the PC is x86 (any way would you have x86 PCS these days?)

[Jaybone]

For Office 2013, MS themselves still recommend 32-bit unless the 64-bit functionality is specifically needed. Or has that changed?

 

As far as the OS... some of us are still stuck running 16-bit legacy garbage that can't be run on a 64-bit OS, with no time or budget to get it converted to something more modern. If one has the time to implement virtualization to get around that, great, but not everyone does.

[GarthMJ]

As far as I know that unless you have an office add-on that required x86, you are better off with x64 version as it handles memory better.

 

As for not moving to x64 OS, I completely understand that need to stay on x86 OS as 16-bit applications will only run on a 32bit OS.