XP Pro Has 2GB Limit????

[Guest]

I was just told by someone in our MIS group that Windows XP Pro can only use
2GB of memory. I had ordered a new server with 4GB, but he says the extra 2G
will be wasted since "XP Pro only has the capability of seeing 2GB of memory".

Can this be true? I've never heard of this before...

Thanks,
John

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows XP supports up to 4GB of RAM.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

I was just told by someone in our MIS group that Windows XP Pro can only use
| 2GB of memory. I had ordered a new server with 4GB, but he says the extra 2G
| will be wasted since "XP Pro only has the capability of seeing 2GB of memory".
|
| Can this be true? I've never heard of this before...
|
| Thanks,
| John

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

John

XP works with 4gb, but it does not show the full '4'.. apparently, with that
much installed, it takes some for 'system' memory, but just doesn't tell you
that.. even if it showed the full '4', it would still allocate the way it
does, so nothing lost.. most get a shown total of 3.?Gb..

 

[Jim]

I was just told by someone in our MIS group that Windows XP Pro can only
use
2GB of memory. I had ordered a new server with 4GB, but he says the extra
2G
will be wasted since "XP Pro only has the capability of seeing 2GB of
memory".

Can this be true? I've never heard of this before...

Thanks,
John

Each process on XP has a 4GB virtual address space. However, as the OS must
be mapped into this space, the amount of virtual memory that any program can
use is limited to 2 BG except when the /3GB switch gets added in the
boot.ini (correct name?). You will not that the amount of physical RAM has
no influence of the amount of virtual memory.

That much physical RAM will probably reduce the demands on the page file;
hence, RAM in excess of 2 GB is helpful.

It is most assuredly incorrect that XP can only see 2GB of RAN.

Jim

 

[Guest]

Thanks Carey, Mike and Jim. I knew that guy just had to be wrong.

 

[Arnie]

I was just told by someone in our MIS group that Windows XP Pro
can only use
2GB of memory. I had ordered a new server with 4GB, but he
says the extra 2G
will be wasted since "XP Pro only has the capability of seeing
2GB of memory".

Can this be true? I've never heard of this before...

Thanks,
John

What Jim said is largely correct. With a 4GB address space, the
OS gets the top 2 GB, the app gets the lower 2GB. Also, as Jim
said, the more physical RAM the better.

Yes, the /3GB switch can be added to boot.ini. This forces the
OS into the upper 1GB and gives the app 3GB. This is not always
a wise thing to do because the OS has less room for caching, for
all apps. But, in any case, any app that wants to use the 3GB
must have the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set in the EXE header. You
can Google for this to get more info.

- Arnie

 

[Kerry Brown]

I was just told by someone in our MIS group that Windows XP Pro can
only use 2GB of memory. I had ordered a new server with 4GB, but he
says the extra 2G will be wasted since "XP Pro only has the
capability of seeing 2GB of memory".

Can this be true? I've never heard of this before...

Thanks,
John

If you ordered a server why does it matter how much memory XP can use?

Kerry

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I was just told by someone in our MIS group that Windows XP Pro can
only use 2GB of memory. I had ordered a new server with 4GB, but
he says the extra 2G will be wasted since "XP Pro only has the
capability of seeing 2GB of memory".

Can this be true? I've never heard of this before...

If you ordered a server why does it matter how much memory XP can
use?

*grin*
Glad I wasn't the only one wondering that.

Server hardware and Windows XP are not two things I associate together
readily.
Seen it done - shook my head and moved on...

 

[Kerry Brown]

*grin*
Glad I wasn't the only one wondering that.

Server hardware and Windows XP are not two things I associate together
readily.
Seen it done - shook my head and moved on...

Saw the same thing a couple of weeks ago. Customer wanted a quote on setting
up a server in a new office. They had moved a bunch of computers from
another office and wanted them networked and possibly a server setup. One of
the workstations was a Dell server with dual Xeons, SCSI array, 2 GB ram,
running XP Pro. The current staff had no idea what it was, who did it, or
why it was done

Kerry

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Hey guys

Its cheaper to buy and run OEM XP pro on a server.. I'm amazed that you
didn't pick up on that..

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hey guys

Its cheaper to buy and run OEM XP pro on a server.. I'm amazed that
you didn't pick up on that..

There's a reason it's cheaper. It's not a server OS. If you are using XP as
a "server" in a p2p network then the extra expense of real server hardware
is overkill. By the time you need real server hardware you also need a
server OS - Windows, Linix, Unix, whatever.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

If you ordered a server why does it matter how much memory XP can use?

Kerry

This "server" will be used to run a few virtual machines (either VPC or
VMWare - we are still evaluating them both). I wanted to give each machine
at least 512mb of memory, so I opted for the 4gb configuration. The MIS guy
kept saying that everything above 2gb would not be used.

John

 

[Guest]

If you ordered a server why does it matter how much memory XP can use?

Kerry

This "server" will be used to run a few virtual machines (either VPC or
VMWare - we are still evaluating them both). I wanted to give each machine
at least 512mb of memory, so I opted for the 4gb configuration. The MIS guy
kept saying that everything above 2gb would not be used.

John

 

[Michael]

2GB is the user address space limitation (per process) of Windows XP
(can be changed to 3GB), not the physical memory size limitation!

 

[Guest]

I keep trying to explain that to him...

2GB is the user address space limitation (per process) of Windows XP
(can be changed to 3GB), not the physical memory size limitation!