Hyper-V Guest, 32bits, & >4GB RAM

hyper-vmemory

I have a Hyper-V Guest running Server 2008 SP2, 32bit. I have added a total of 6GB of RAM to the guest, and as you can see from the screenshot, Windows recognizes the 6GB. However, when I bring up Task Manager, it shows that only 4GB is being used. I was under the impression that if Windows recognized all 6GB of RAM, that it would use all 6GB?

Am I missing something?

<=Screenshot below=>

enter image description here

Best Answer

Windows will report all of the memory that is installed in the machine but how much it actually uses is dependent on the architecture: x86 or x64 and edition: Standard, Enterprise, etc. To allow Windows to use all 6GB you need to enable PAE but this is not applicable on Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition 32bit.

Here's an article that details how to enable PAE on Windows Server 2008, for your reference:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929580

And here's an article that details the memory limitations of various Windows Operating Systems:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_server_2008

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