Operating system: any Windows 32 and 64 bit versions, including Vista, Win7, Win8, Win 10
Memory (RAM): this depends on what else may be running concurrently, but generally 1 gigabyte of RAM is plenty. Most PC’s will have more.
Hard drive: hard drives are so big now there shouldn’t be a problem. Even large CostGuard users have less than 100 megabytes of data, so any PC with multiple gigabytes of hard drive space is fine.
Servers:Windows Server 2008, 2008R, 2012 and 2012R
Essentially, any reasonably new Windows OS will be fine.
For remote usage: (i.e., a wide-area network), remote desktop protocol (RDP) and Citrix/terminal services is preferred.
A VPN (virtual private network) is usually too sluggish and is not recommended.
Do NOT use DropBox or OneDrive as your server. You should never use Dropbox or OneDrive synced folders for your database files.
Database files are quite different from word documents or photos- they require constant and random read and write as they operate and cloud sync features will interfere with these operations.