4GB of RAM tunning in windows xp professional xp sp2 with 32bit

[Plato]

I 'm running windows XP SP2 on thinkcentre M55 with Intel Core 2 Duo E6550
@2.33GHZ. I'm trying to tune the memory on windows xp sp2 so I can have 4 GB
of RAM.
I can see the 4GB of RAM in the Bios, but windows can't see it because it's
32 bit. I found articles with Microsoft so you can tune the memory. I

You have cards which are using ram.

 

[Yman]

If I buy a USB Flash Memory would it help me with the issue?
Can I have more than 4 GB ?
We need to use it for Developers machine that has VMware workstations with
SharePoint installed.

 

[John John (MVP)]

Once again, other than yanking PCI devices out of the box there is
*absolutely* *nothing* that you can do to access the unavailable RAM.
To access the RAM you will have to use a 64-bit operating system or one
of the 32-bit server versions that supports PAE, Windows XP 32-bit will
not be able to fully use the installed RAM, period. You are beating a
dead horse!

John

 

[Peter Foldes]

NO and NO and No

 

[Yman]

Thanks !

I know I don't have a choice, but what I was thinking the VMware for
Sharepoint is Windows 2003 SP2. I thought may be I can allocate the Memory
from the USB Flash Memory. The host is windows XP sp2 and the VMware 6.4 is
windows 2003 SP2.

What do you think John ?

I don't want be Pain in .. but other wise I need to go and get new machines
with Quad CPU.

 

[John John (MVP)]

That won't work! The host or underlying operating system (Windows XP)
cannot fully access all the installed RAM so in turn the Virtual Machine
and any software that it runs will not be able to access all the RAM.
Even if you get a brand new machine with quad cores it still won't make
any difference if the machine comes with a 32-bit XP/Vista workstation
operating system. If VMware tells you to use the /3gb switch then use
it, it will help by making more Virtual Address Space available to the
application and in turn the Virtual Memory Manager will be able to map
more of the VAS to physical memory addresses, but that will still not
allow the use of the unavailable RAM, and it does not guarantee that the
full 3GB of VAS will be mapped to the RAM, it will be mapped to
available RAM and or the pagefile, it depends on what the kernel mode
processes and non pagegable code needs for its use.

Secondly, removable disks/flash memory cannot be used for the pagefile.

And finally, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server requires Microsoft
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
Edition, Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition or Windows Server 2003
Web Edition to run. Do you have one of these server versions? If not,
how are you going to run this on VMware without one of these licenses?
If you do own one of these Server licenses then, depending on the
version that you own you may be able to install it on the computer and
use PAE to fully access the RAM.

John

 

[Tim Slattery]

If I buy a USB Flash Memory would it help me with the issue?
No.

Can I have more than 4 GB ?

Not unless you have 64-bit hardware and software.

We need to use it for Developers machine that has VMware workstations with
SharePoint installed.

Sounds like a good reason to check out 64-bit computing.

 

[Alvyn]

Dear John

I saw that all is saying "NO" to support of memory more than 4GB in 32Bit OS.

Can you please advice as I am confused on this when I read this statement
found in :
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

"Physical Address Extension. PAE is an Intel-provided memory address
extension that enables support of up to 64 GB of physical memory for
applications running on most 32-bit (IA-32) Intel Pentium Pro and later
platforms. Support for PAE is provided under Windows 2000 and 32-bit versions
of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. 64-bit versions of Windows do not
support PAE."

Correct me if I am wrong. I read the above statement as -> PAE can be
supported in Windows 2000 & 32bit of WinXP & Win2003 Server. So long as PAE
is enable in these OS, it can support up to 64GB of Physical Memory for
applications running on 32bit Intel Pentium Pro & later platform.

So can I presume that if I installed 8GB of memory with a Quad Core
processor, I can fully make use of the rest of the available memory in
running application like Photoshop & 3DS MAX up to a maximum of 64GB if I
have /PAE switch in boot.ini?

If I am wrong, can you please rephrase it so that I can have a better
understanding on what this statement is talking about.

Thanks

Alvyn

 

[John John (MVP)]

Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server support
the use of this switch and respectively support memory limits of 8GB and
32GB with the use of the switch. Windows 2000 Professional does not
support the use of the switch. Windows XP supports PAE for hardware
enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP), even with the use of the
switch the maximum available RAM that Windows XP supports is 4GB and
because of the hardware limitations discussed in earlier posts Windows
XP cannot address all the available RAM so it effectively cannot fully
use 4GB of RAM.

Current crop of Microsoft 32-bit operating systems that can utilise more
than 4GB of RAM with the use of Physical Address Extension:

Windows 2000 Advanced Server - 8 processors and 8 GB RAM

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server - 32 processors and 32 GB RAM
(support for 64 GB was not offered because of a lack of systems for testing)

Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition - 8 processors and 32 GB RAM

Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition - 8 processors and 64 GB RAM

Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition 32 processors and 64 GB RAM

Windows Server 2003 SP1, Datacenter Edition 32 processors and 128 GB RAM

Operating Systems and PAE Support
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/pae_os.mspx

Physical Address Extension - PAE Memory and Windows
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

For Windows workstations the only way around the issue is to use 64-bit
hardware and a 64-bit workstation version.

John

 

[Al Dykes]

The purpose of the /userva switch is to provide sufficient memory
address space for the XP kernel if the /3GB switch is used. The /3GB
switch adds 1GB to the default 2GB of application memory address
space at the expense of the OS kernel. If Task Manager showed 3.5GB
of physical memory you would be okay, as 0.5GB would be available
for the OS. If Task Manager only showed 3.1GB as available, XP
would only have 100MB, which could lead to a lot of OS paging, or
a system crash. That's why MS recommends a /userva in the range
of 2800 - 2900 MB. The /userva switch gives some memory back to
to OS that is taken by the /3GB switch.

In addition, the extra 1GB provided by the /3GB switch can only
be used by applications that are large address aware, such as
Adobe Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements.

Is "large address aware" the same as PAE?

Does this mean that PS is capable of using PAE services?

 

[Yman]

Dear Alvyn,

This what happen to me, I read the article from Microsoft and they said it
can be done.

At least I'm getting migrane

 

[Ian D]

Dear Alvyn,

This what happen to me, I read the article from Microsoft and they said it
can be done.

At least I'm getting migrane

:

PAE can be enabled in Win XP, (for Intel DEP), but it will not
enable XP to use more than 4GB. PAE works in server editions
of Windows on later editions of Intel CPUs by enabling 4 extra
address lines to allow page switching of 16x4GB pages for a
maximum of 64GB.

The charts here explain it all.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

 

[Tim Slattery]

Is "large address aware" the same as PAE?
No.

Does this mean that PS is capable of using PAE services?

Don't know what PS is, but 32-bit XP does not support PAE for address
space extension. Period. 32-bit XP has a 4GB address space, some of
that must be used for BIOS, video memory, etc. You *cannot* use 4GB of
system RAM in 32-bit XP (or Vista). Period. No exceptions.

 

[Tim Slattery]

Dear Alvyn,

This what happen to me, I read the article from Microsoft and they said it
can be done.

XP supports PAE *only* to enable DEP (data execution prevention) NOT
to extend the address space.

 

[Yman]

Can you please see this article from Microsfot. Go to this site
"http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/kernel/mem-mgmt.mspx" and download the
meg-mgmt and check the specs on windows XP SP2 32bit.

They say Windows XP SP2 32 bits support 4GB of RAM and this is all what I'm
looking to. I only want to show 4GB of Memory.

Please advise

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

They say Windows XP SP2 32 bits support 4GB of RAM and this is all what I'm
looking to. I only want to show 4GB of Memory.

All 32-bit client versions of Windows (not just Vista/XP) have a 4GB
address space. That's the theoretical upper limit beyond which you can
not go.

But you can't use the entire 4GB of address space. Even though you
have a 4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM.
That's because some of that space is used by hardware and is not
available to the operating system and applications. The amount you can
use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but can
range from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around
3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. The rest of the RAM goes unused because there is no
address space to map it too.