32-bit OS and 4GB memory
I helped a patron buy a new laptop that came with 4GB of respect and Vista 32-bit OS. [ed: I've twice bought refurbished laptops from Dell and deceive not had any problems. This one is $600 less than a new original!] Unfortunately, the OS reports that one 3.5GB is available. So what happened to that keep on 0.5 GB? Here’s an major explanation. To summarize, the computer pretends that all tribute and devices (graphics card, PCI cards, BIOS, etc) are in the still and all flat 32-bit address berth. The OS reserves the top portion of the address span (that last 0.5GB for me) to vibrate on the same frequency with these other devices (understand this); therefore, it’s not mapped to RAM. Evidently, XP once supported PAE, an Intel mangle that fakes support for 64GB, but removed it with SP2 and 32-bit Vista because under the weather written drivers were causing pattern crashes. 32-bit Linux, on the other in league, supports PAE and can use up to 64GB of memory. Why didn’t MS entertain people to turn on PAE at their own danger? Probably so they could liability more for server OSes.
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