Windows Server 2003

wannabedamned · 4 Nov 2008 at 15:47

Does this OS have the 3.5gb visual RAM limitation?

We have a server, With 8 slots available for RAM, and it came pre installed with Server 2003, Surely it has the capability to see lots of RAM.

We currently have only 2gb installed, and we're moving to 8gb.

Don't really want to take the Server offline for an OS upgrade.

Thanks

Burnsy2023 · 4 Nov 2008 at 15:52

Server 2003 like Vista comes in x86 and x64 flavours. The 32bit version has the 3.5GB RAM limitation, the 64bit version does not.

.walls · 4 Nov 2008 at 15:54

Depends on whether it's a 32 bit version or not.

also - it's not that the OS can only see 3.5GB - a 32 bit OS can address 4GB, but this includes any memory on HDDs, HBAs, even BIOS.

/PAE work ok though (google it)

Burnsy2023 · 4 Nov 2008 at 15:56

PAE may not work depending on your hardware and drivers associated with that hardware.

wannabedamned · 4 Nov 2008 at 15:56

Oh dear, Looks like we are limited then.

Cheers though!

3.5gb Is still a nice increase compared to 2gb, We constantly have a Pagefile of 2.9gb with a lot of usage, So going from 2 to 3.5gb is still going to be an improvement.

We have an Intel Xeon server from a company called Evesham, Its quite old to be fair.

Will look into PAE, Nice to learn something new!

rpstewart · 4 Nov 2008 at 15:58

Is this Server 2003 Standard Edition or Enterprise? If it's the latter you can use the /PAE switch in the boot.ini to allow access to 32Gb of physical RAM.