- XP Pro Has 2GB Limit????
- Posted by John Schneider on February 8th, 2006
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
- Posted by Carey Frisch [MVP] on February 8th, 2006
Windows XP supports up to 4GB of RAM.
--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"John Schneider" wrote:
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
- Posted by Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\) on February 8th, 2006
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..
--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User
"John Schneider" <johnmsch@newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:6C3C286B-FC3F-4191-ADF1-52FD2E39A7A9@microsoft.com...
- Posted by Jim on February 8th, 2006
"John Schneider" <johnmsch@newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:6C3C286B-FC3F-4191-ADF1-52FD2E39A7A9@microsoft.com...
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
- Posted by John Schneider on February 8th, 2006
Thanks Carey, Mike and Jim. I knew that guy just had to be wrong.
"John Schneider" wrote:
- Posted by Arnie on February 8th, 2006
"John Schneider" <johnmsch@newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:6C3C286B-FC3F-4191-ADF1-52FD2E39A7A9@microsoft.com...
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
- Posted by Kerry Brown on February 8th, 2006
John Schneider wrote:
If you ordered a server why does it matter how much memory XP can use?
Kerry
- Posted by Shenan Stanley on February 8th, 2006
John Schneider wrote:
Kerry Brown wrote:
*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...
--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
- Posted by Kerry Brown on February 9th, 2006
Shenan Stanley wrote:
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
- Posted by Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\) on February 9th, 2006
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.. :-)
--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User
"Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in message
news:%236xHJVRLGHA.3944@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
- Posted by Kerry Brown on February 9th, 2006
Mike Hall (MS-MVP) wrote:
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
- Posted by John Schneider on March 22nd, 2006
"Kerry Brown" wrote:
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
- Posted by John Schneider on March 22nd, 2006
"Kerry Brown" wrote:
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
- Posted by Michael on March 22nd, 2006
2GB is the user address space limitation (per process) of Windows XP
(can be changed to 3GB), not the physical memory size limitation!
John Schneider wrote:
- Posted by John Schneider on March 22nd, 2006
I keep trying to explain that to him...
"Michael" wrote:
