
Use up to 64GB of RAM on 32 bit Windows 8 - RachelF
http://wj32.org/wp/2012/12/26/pae-patch-updated-for-windows-8/
======
zdw
Note that this doesn't enable you to run 64-bit applications, or for any
single process to address more than 4GB of memory.

As a result, it's of extremely limited utility today - you'd need a 32-bit
application that needs to run on bare hardware (ie, not a 32-bit OS running
under a 64-bit VM), and needs a ton of memory, or a pre-64-bit system with >
4GB of memory, which would be both rare and inefficient, as that would be
single core/socket systems that are at least 6 years old at this point.

I guess if you had some system you were trying to keep alive that needed a lot
of RAM, PCI-X card slots, and 32-bit software it might be handy, but that
seems very rare/esoteric at this point.

~~~
darwinGod
A relevant stackoverflow thread for the same,which addresses some common
misconceptions

[http://superuser.com/questions/367490/can-a-32-bit-os-
machin...](http://superuser.com/questions/367490/can-a-32-bit-os-machine-use-
up-all-8gb-ram-20gb-page-file)

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, but it's still a kludge

Yes, some programs can have more memory in 32-bit (example: Photoshop) but, as
it says there, you have to keep swapping them

So, people, move to 64-bit already, unless you absolutely cannot

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dave1010uk
We made the mistake of installing Windows 7 Premium 64-bit on a workstation
with 24GB of RAM but Windows only said 16GB was available!

I can see why MS restrict their products like this so they can artificially
price them. But in the end we ditched Windows and just installed Linux.

~~~
nikita2206
Why on earth would you install Windows on a workstation machine when you can
use Linux (and there's no limitations such as the need to run IIS, etc)?

~~~
venomsnake
A wild guess could be that the work needed to be done on that station was
windows only or they did not had *nix people on board or that they wanted to
see if this was enough ram for Crysis ...

~~~
workbench
Well it wasn't windows only was it because they just installed Linux in the
end

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stephengillie
Why is there a 32bit variant of win8? Are there people who actually use win8
on non-64bit systems?

~~~
zdw
Long hardware maintenance cycles, especially in businesses.

The last 32-bit NetBurst (Pentium 4) systems with 2GB of RAM aren't that bad
to work on, when given a video card that supports Windows 7/8 video features
and a decently fast disk.

You don't need a whole lot more to run a greenscreen terminal emulator or a
basic web browser.

~~~
sigkill
I'm actually in the market for a old dumb box and for power(i.e.
energy/electricity) reasons I'm shying away from the PressHot - Pentiums. I'm
targeting a Core 2 Duo which seem like a great balance between power and
performance and I'm reasonably sure that the money I'd save by going this
route would not be recovered over the course of 5 years if I get a more recent
box.

~~~
rbanffy
You may go with one of the desktop Atoms. They can, IIRC, handle up to 4 GB of
RAM and consume less power than a Core 2 Duo.

~~~
sigkill
That might work. I'm looking for a pure file backup server that can receive
the occasional fax and use PHP's sendmail function.

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Jam0864
Cool trick, but why not just use 64 bit?

~~~
acqq
1) 64-bit has bigger overhead. If you have, for example, 8 GB maximum (e.g. a
notebook) then you'll have the advantage of having more RAM available by using
32-bit system. If you just use a notebook for surfing, you wouldn't care. If
you did something that had specific memory needs, it was the best solution
before the notebooks with more RAM possible appeared.

2) Other hardware compatibility as there is still enough hardware without
64-bit drivers. But don't expect too much there: some kind of such hardware
will have problem with this patch though. You'd have to try to be sure.

Now that even notebooks allow 16 GB the patch is becoming less relevant.

~~~
shin_lao
1/If you have 8 GiB of RAM, and you just surf, you don't care about the 64-bit
overhead. Also 64-bit is more convenient as browser tend to flirt with the 2/3
GiB process limit.

2/If you have 64-bit machine, this problem is unlikely to exist on Windows.

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felixfurtak
So is this basically RAM paging similar to when CPUs transitioned from 16- to
32-bit?

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ck2
Wish they'd backport it for XP, I am determined to get another year out of
this machine.

~~~
yuhong
Sadly it is not trivial to do. See Geoff Chappell's article:
[http://geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm](http://geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm)
You'd be better off with Server 2003 Enterprise, which is also supported until
July 2015 unlike XP.

~~~
LeeLorean
The Geoff Chappell article is great. Seems like he examined it in detail:

"The 32-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 all contain code for using
physical memory above 4GB. Microsoft just doesn’t license you to use that
code."

A huge pity he no longer blogs.

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gabipurcaru
Wasn't PAE available for pretty much all versions starting from XP?
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/desktop/aa36...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/desktop/aa366796\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

~~~
acqq
PAE was turned on but the licensing control code made by Microsoft checked if
it's a consumer version of the OS or if it's a server, and if it's a server
which version, and based on this decided how many memory to give to 32-bit OS.
Consumer versions remained limited to 4 GB. This is detailed in the analysis
of Geoff Chappell:

[http://geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm](http://geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm)

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jaxn
A whole 64MB?!?

~~~
RachelF
my mistake - 64GB. Fixed it

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yuhong
The sad thing is there is no 32-bit server version of Windows 7 or later so
these patches are your only option if you want to enable this.

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workbench
That OS is such a complete joke

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LeeLorean
You will make Microsoft angry if you do this. They have various versions of
Windows 8, and some are more crippled than others.

It enables PAE which is 36bit addressing Microsoft brought in for their server
product line. You still only have 4GB per process, though.

I've been using this one for Windows 7. Gives me 64GB
[http://www.adminsehow.com/2011/03/windows-7-32-bit-pae-
patch...](http://www.adminsehow.com/2011/03/windows-7-32-bit-pae-patch/)

~~~
jsight
Don't the 32bit and 64bit versions cost the same amount? I'm not sure why this
would make MS angry.

~~~
yuhong
Yea, I think the licensing mechanism was used for this limit just because it
was convenient to do so.

