Windows Vista How to Enable Full 4GB RAM Recognition in Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

[kini96]

anybody know how i can get vista home premium 32 bit to recognize all of my 4 gig of ram

 

[superbill]

Hi kini96

If you are running 32-bit Windows, you must live with it. You will not ever see all 4GB of RAM you've paid for. Due to an architectural decision made long ago, if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed, Windows is only able to report a portion of the physical 4GB of RAM (ranges from 2.75GB to 3.5GB depending on the devices installed, motherboard's chipset & BIOS). As far as 32-bit Vista is concerned, the world ends at 4,096 megabytes. That's it. That's all there is.
However Addressing more than 4 GB of memory is possible in a 32-bit operating system, but it takes nasty hardware hacks like 36-bit PAE extensions in the CPU, together with nasty software hacks like the AWE.APT ( for experts only). Unless the application is specifically coded to be take advantage of these hacks, it's confined to 4 GB.
So look on the bright side, 4GB is more than enough for now and is likely to be enough for the next OS, Windows 7.

 

[03hdfatboy]

Hi kini96

If you are running 32-bit Windows, you must live with it. You will not ever see all 4GB of RAM you've paid for. Due to an architectural decision made long ago, if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed, Windows is only able to report a portion of the physical 4GB of RAM

What he said