I have to correct one thing that you said. One of the clients that I serve has a Dell Dimension 9200 desktop. It is running Windows XP Professional SP2 32-bit edition and has a total of 4GB of RAM installed. I was well aware of the fact the 4GB of RAM installed on a 32-bit operating system meant that not all of it will be recognized and transferred this knowledge onto my client. The actual amount that will be recognized by the operating system also depends on the kind of motherboard that is installed. I’m not sure what kind of motherboard Dell used for the Dimension 9200 but Windows XP Professional SP2 32-bit edition passing actually recognizing 3.75GB of RAM out of the 4GB of RAM that I have installed. So your statement that 3.15GB of RAM is the limit on 32-bit operating systems is incorrect.

P.S. I’m not sure what the Ghz is on the process or this computer but I do know that it is a Pentium D chip. So basically it isn’t even a top of the line chip.

Hello Marc,
I was one of those who chose XP in 2014. But in reality, it may be Windows 7 or 8…… but not Vista. :-)

In the future, I will probably be using anything mac related. I think that in the future there will be macs that are just touch screen enabled. No keyboard, no mouse. I am not saying it will be like the Microsoft Surface, which is a big computer on a table that is most likely very heavy and not meant to be portable. I might be using Windows 7, but it may not be out by 2014, so I will still be using Windows XP SP3, which is sad. I will be looking more at mac in my near future. If you want to see possible future macs go to any search engine and type future mac. People were very close on the MacBook Air. They even had the exact name and detail right!

Doug, I am using a direct quote from Microsoft, so if there is a problem, it comes from there - I have never used more than 3.0 GB as most mothrboards only have 4 slots, and so getting dual channel performance demands 2×1GB and 2×512KB for that. I think it is silly to have unrecognized memory sitting on a motherboard. By the way, if Intel had not stupidly decided to map the video I/O across the RAM space, the actual space would be 4GB, no matter what.

Actually, I just looked that up again, the the reason given for 3.12 (which is actually 3.125) is that is the maximum that can reliably counted on to work without problems.

Ron, I think that is another strength of XP - I can pare it down to work acceptably on a 333MHz Pentium II, yet it doesn’t hinder the use of quad core machines just coming out today. Again, if MS had thought to limit the use of XP to two cores, whether on the same chip or not, Vista would be growing by default.

Matt, as I’ve said before, I like the Mac OS, but I really like choosing my hardware myself, so my Mac use will always be limited by that.

Thanks, all, for the comments.

This is a topic that I face a lot because the majority of my clients have Latitudes and Optiplexs from Dell. Dell has recently been sending special deals to some of my clients which only have the option of 4GB of RAM.

Is there any chance, that for the edification of the community, you can post the URL for the Microsoft document that you are referring to? Mainly because this is something that a lot of people are starting to face because Windows VIsta has a sweet-spot of 2GB of RAM and power users prefer to have specs above an operating systems sweet-spot.

The 1st URL that is relevant to this topic from Microsoft. It is a breakdown of the amount of supported RAM for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft operating systems since Windows XP. Keep in mind that the amount of available RAM includes the amount of RAM that is on a dedicated graphics card as explained in the 2nd URL below.

http://tinyurl.com/6z6u7d

http://tinyurl.com/28cxv3

P.S. Sorry if you feel that I attacked you. I just have personal experience that shows that what you said isn’t necessarily true for all computers.

Hello,

By 2014, I would expect to be running a mostly Microsoft Windows 7 on the desktop, and perhaps Microsoft Windows Vista on older systems, which being six years from now, I probably will not have even purchased yet. Since I am already putting 8GB of RAM into desktops and 4GB into notebooks, I would expect to have this much RAM or more and running 64-bit versions of the operating systems.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

In 2014, I plan on using a MacBook Pro as my primary machine. The Mac OS version depends on what is out at the time, and how much I like it (I’m currently sticking with Tiger on my iMac as I see no valid reason to upgrade to Leopard).

I also plan on running Windows 2000 or XP in a VM. I’m curious, though, about whether or not Microsoft will shut down XP activation servers at some point? Any ideas?

Doug -
The reduction in available system memory depends on the devices that are installed in the computer. However, to avoid potential driver compatibility issues, the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista limit the total available memory to 3.12 GB. See the “More information” section for information about potential driver compatibility issues.

The above, from your second source, was what I had seen ina reprinted form.
What I did not see was the information in the paragraph just below it.
I have personally never seen one of those motherboards chipsets mentioned work right consistently - especially Dells, as I have had customers have problems with 4 GB of memory just sitting on the motherboard, when a 512MB video card was installed. Moving to a 256MB card helped, but still caused some problems. Perhaps using a smaller amount of video memory would alleviate it totally, but I cannot say for sure.
I read so much yet seldom write down where it comes from - I do remember a test in Maximum PC magazine where problems with large video buffers and large games caused problems, evern when using the /3GB switch. When system memory was cut back, the problems with crashing disappeared.

You seem to have a working example, of larger memory space, but have you really pushed it - like gaming or stress testing would do? I’d be interested in seeing that, because I have frequently seen gaming push “buttons” on motherboards that should not be pushed, causing crashes and in one case, permanent damage.

People are wondering what Windows 7 will look like.

It will be a sloppy copy of Leopard.

Ish - if Microsoft shuts down activation servers, there are ways around the problem, and I would imagine the solutions would become widespread should that occur.

Jim - I don’t think so, MS could not allow the look and feel to become Apple-like. It could however, become something like Solaris with a Vista front-end.

Just look at the file structures of Vista, they are becoming more Unix like with each iteration, as it started in XP. Of course MS could not just name things like /bin, /etc - that would be too clever.

If the World keeps going the way it is, there will not be a 2014