yeap, i have confirmed and posted my findings in relation to my own server hardware.
Yeah, how does Windows 2003 Server support more than 3.? gigs if it is merely a 32-bit/64-bit issue?
My wild guess is that the PAE thing is implemented correctly in Server and limited in desktop platforms for sales/marketing reasons rather than technical ones.
Vista’s new Service Pack 1 now allows for the display of all 4 GB (or other higher amounts) of RAM installed now, even if Windows isn’t using all of it.
i just bought a new alienware m15x with 4gb RAM and a 32 bit vista os, and my system says that it is using 4gb. i thought i would need to upgrade to a 64 bit, so i bought it prior to my laptop… i jsut may install it anyways.
Or you could free yourself from Microsoft’s arbitrary limitation on max. RAM for consumer 32 bit Windows using a 1 byte kernel patch:
http://iolsmit.blogspot.com/
Technical description:
http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm
Brandon Paddock wrote “To those claiming Linux doesn’t have this problem: You’re wrong. A 32-bit Linux OS will have the exact same limitations, right down the the kilobyte.”
There’s an compilation option in the Linux kernel, High Memory Support. I don’t use it (I run a Dell laptop, 3 GB RAM), but it should work if it made it into the kernel.
Incorrect math Jeff, but overall a great article. Locations allocated for 32bit address space is 2^32, which then converted to bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and ultimately gigabytes leads to approximately 4GB.
Hi, can you explain dividing by 1024 x 1024 and then by 8 to convert to exabytes please?
I came up with a hack that lets you use any amount of RAM (6GB in my case) on Win32:
http://nighthacking.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-use-more-than-4-gb-of-ram-with.html
It’s a complete BS issue, if the hardware can support it it can use the memory. What we have is forced upsell for 64 bit OSs. The only thing required is a 48 or 64 bit patch as was done for hard drives over 128GB. Sure that would slow things down at the kernel level, but given the speed increases in processors and memory it’s not much of an issue.