Please don't post information in the title as part of the post. Put it in the post.

The messenger service is another service on your windows machine. If it's not running...

I don't think cores matter. You can have dual or quad cores.

the password isn't changed, but the SP might start things up in single user mode. If you have something that connects before the SP setup routine, a logon error will...

You should be able to. The platform shouldn't matter for replication, and the disk format is the same for 32 and 64 bit databases.

However if you're worried, why not create...

I think licensing allows for production licenses to be used in test environments, but you'd need to check the MS site. Licensing seems to change regularly.

Should be in the Configuration Manager (in the SQL program group)

It should be based on your client's regional settings.

It's up to each person to decide what they believe. Resources are always un-evenly distributed, even in the "equal" communist societies.

Is the world over populated? Is there a problem...

You would need to use a change in code before the xp_sendmail

if datepart( hh, getdate()) > 22

set @to = 'zz@zz.com'

else

set @to = 'xx@xx.com'

exec xp_sendmail @recipients = @to

Keep in mind while the format between two builds of SS2K5 is the same, the functionality might not be the same for the app. Builds change the way things work,...

Excel, do you mean just editing data in tables? Like lookup data? Access will work, but tends to lock the entire table.

you might be able to build some simple ASP.NET...

You don't want R5 if you have many writes. (http://www.baarf.com) Go with R1 or R10, be sure that you have separate arrays for data and backups.

Any of the major vendors...

Is the linked server set up to pass through credentials? Or impersonate?

How is ISS configured? Is it passing through NT credentials?

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/66030/

I assume you mean in querying. You can't determine which page in the server data is stored on.