Not very good with the workings of computers so here goe's.
I have windows XP home edition pack 3 on a 32 bit sony vaio laptop. Its
running on only 512 of memory and I want to upgrade to a gig
Why do you want to do this?
How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* a
one-size-fits-all situation. You get good performance if the amount of
RAM you have keeps you from using the page file significantly, and
that depends on what apps you run. Most people running a typical range
of business applications under XP find that somewhere around 512MB
works well, others need more. Almost anyone will see poor performance
with less than 256MB. Some people, particularly those doing things
like editing large photographic images, can see a performance boost by
adding even more than 512MB--sometimes much more.
If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your page file usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.
but have been
told this version won't support that amount of memory. Is this true
What do you mean by "this version"? If you are asking about windows XP
home edition SP 3, it is emphatically *not* true. It supports 4GB, of
which you can use about 3.1GB.
If you are asking about your computer, since you haven't told us the
model, nobody here can answer that question for you. Either provide
the model number, or (the best way) check with Sony to find out.
By the way, it's unlikely that your computer is limited to only 512MB.
and is
there anything I can do or install to allow me to upgrade my memory.
No. If your computer is limited to 512MB, there's no way you can go to
more.