Guide:How to have 4gb ddr2 under Vista x32

[Mr. Nobody]

As some of u already knows, Vista 32 bits doesn't support 4gb of RAM, actually u can have it but she doesn't recognise them....H

All 32-bit Operating Systems can only physically address 4 gigabytes of RAM, due to the math involved (232 = 4,294,967,296). Depending on your hardware, Vista may only see 3GB or 3.5GB of the total RAM installed, because there are some devices that are memory mapped. The most common culpret of this type of device is a video card, which can use up to 512MB of memory for mapping.

You can tweak Vista's core to add another 4-bits of addressing capability, but you must have a 64-bit capable processor (pretty much any processor made within the past two years like Intel's Core 2 Duo or AMD's Athlon 64). Even though the math works out to address way more than 4GB (236 = 68,719,476,736), the operating system still has a cap (Windows Server can address anywhere from 8GB to 128GB depending on the flavor).

To force this new addressing method, you have to tell Vista to boot using this new parameter. Vista no longer uses a BOOT.INI file as previous versions of Windows did, so you must modify the boot file using a built-in Vista tool called BCDedit: 1)Open a command prompt (Press Window key + R to open the Run dialog, and then type cmd). 2) Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to execute (this allows you to run cmd in administrative mode if you haven't already setup up a permanent admin mode). 3) Type BCDedit /set PAE forceenable.

This PAE flag (Physical Address Extension) tells the Vista core to use an additional 4 bits of addressing, which in theory allows the OS to see all of the RAM you have available. We're not out of the woods yet, because once you reboot you may find that Vista still doesn't see all of your RAM. You can turn PAE off again by typing BCDedit /set PAE forcedisable or BCDedit /set PAE default.

Should work :D

[catgate]

wow

[deuces wild]

Can an established member here confirm that information posted by Mr. Nobody is accurate?

TIA!

[trackrat]

Taken from an authoritative piece written for Vista and XP.

To force Windows Vista 32‐bit to use 4GB or more of RAM, you need to enable a feature called Physical

Address Extension (PAE), which can be done by opening an Administrator Command Prompt (See Vista

Usage Notes chapter) and typing the following:

BCDEdit /set PAE forceenable

Which seems to verify what has been said.

If any one wants to look at the tweaking companion (Vista or XP) here is the URL.

Beware it is 248 pages but has some excellent advice and is indexed and well worth a look.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

[deuces wild]

Thanks! Just wanted to confirm.