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COBanker
Contributor
Contributor

Accessing memory beyond what a 32bit O/S recognizes

I have a workstation running Vista Business 32bit with 8gb RAM. The O/S will only recognize 3gb. Is there a way to tell a VM to use memory from the un-used bank of RAM?

Thanks!

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8 Replies
Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

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Scissor
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Your best bet would be to install Vista 64-bit on your Host.

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KevinG
Immortal
Immortal

VMware Workstation can only use the memory that the host OS reports as being available.

If fhe OS can only recognize 3GB, then you are most likely only going to be able to use a little over 2GB for the VM's, since you need memory to run the host OS and the overhead needed to run the VM's

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

One of the reasons I'm using 64bit windows and 64bit Ubuntu or OpenSuse!

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator

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COBanker
Contributor
Contributor

I tried enabling PAE, but that didn't seem to have any impact (after a reboot). Unfortunately, I had w a y too many problems when I tried using 64bit Vista on the host. Couldn't find printer drivers, application problems, etc.

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KevinG
Immortal
Immortal

The 32-bit editions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate, all support a maximum of 4 GB of RAM.

Adding /PAE to the boot.ini is not going to have any effect

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

my apologies, I misread the post. I thought OP wanted to see 4GB, not the entire 8

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COBanker
Contributor
Contributor

I pretty much knew the O/S wasn't going to be able to do it. I was hopeful that the VMware would have some sort of driver that would allow it to access the unusued memory. Alas, I believe I'm out of luck.

Thanks for the replies!

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