Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> Incidentally, I seem to recall that there is a way of using greater
> than 2GB of memory on 32-bit XP; It's a matter of turning on the
> so-called "3gb switch":
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
>
which is suicide on the typical x86 32bit system that has max 3.2GB
(+/-) addressable physical memory[1], never mind the issues it causes
with reduced space for page tables and such.
if you read through all the microsoft KB articles and stuff on that
flag, it was recommended for use only under tightly controlled
circumstances, like a 32bit windows server that was dedicated to running
1-2 specific apps that were OK with it,.
[1] yes the hardware probably supports PAE to access physical memory
above 4GB via page table extensions, but XP 32bit doesn't.