Memory Limits for Windows Releases

This topic describes memory limits for supported Windows releases:

• Memory and Address Space Limits

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows 7

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows Server 2008 R2

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows Server 2008

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows Vista

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows Home Server

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows Server 2003

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows XP

• Physical Memory Limits: Windows 2000

• Related Topics

Limits on memory and address space vary by platform, operating system, and by whether the
IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE value of the LOADED_IMAGE structure and 4-gigabyte tuning
(4GT) are in use. IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE is set or cleared by using the
/LARGEADDRESSAWARE linker option.

Limits on physical memory for 32-bit platforms also depend on the Physical Address Extension (PAE),
which allows 32-bit Windows systems to use more than 4 GB of physical memory.

Memory and Address Space Limits

The following table specifies the limits on memory and address space for supported releases of Windows.

Memory
type Limit in 32-bit Windows Limit in 64-bit Windows

User-mode 2 GB 2 GB with
virtual Up to 3 GB with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE
address IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE and cleared (default)
space for 4GT 4 GB with
each 32-bit IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE set
process

User-mode Not applicable With

virtual IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE set
address (default):
space for x64: 8 TB
each 64-bit Intel IPF: 7 TB
process 2 GB with
IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE
cleared

Kernel-mode 2 GB 8 TB
virtual From 1 GB to a maximum of 2 GB with 4GT
address
space

Paged pool Limited by available kernel-mode virtual 128 GB

address space or the PagedPoolLimit registry Windows Server 2003 and
key value. Windows XP: Up to 128 GB depending on
 Windows Vista: Limited only by kernel configuration and RAM.
mode virtual address space. Starting with Windows 2000: Not applicable
Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1), the
paged pool can also be limited by the
PagedPoolLimit registry key value.
Windows Home Server and Windows
Server 2003: 530 MB
Windows XP: 490 MB
Windows 2000: 350 MB

Nonpaged Limited by available kernel-mode virtual 75% of RAM up to a maximum of 128 GB

pool address space, the NonPagedPoolLimit Windows Vista: 40% of RAM up to a
registry key value, or physical memory. maximum of 128 GB.
Windows Vista: Limited only by kernel Windows Server 2003 and
mode virtual address space and physical Windows XP: Up to 128 GB depending on
memory. Starting with Windows Vista with configuration and RAM.
SP1, the nonpaged pool can also be limited by Windows 2000: Not applicable
the NonPagedPoolLimit registry key value.
Windows Home Server, Windows
Server 2003, and
Windows XP/2000: 256 MB, or 128 MB
with 4GT.

System Limited by available kernel-mode virtual Always 1 TB regardless of physical RAM

cache virtual address space or the SystemCacheLimit Windows Server 2003 and
address registry key value. Windows XP: Up to 1 TB depending on
space Windows Vista: Limited only by kernel configuration and RAM.
(physical mode virtual address space. Starting with Windows 2000: Not applicable
size limited Windows Vista with SP1, system cache virtual
only by address space can also be limited by the
physical SystemCacheLimit registry key value.
memory) Windows Home Server, Windows
Server 2003, and
Windows XP/2000: 860 MB with
LargeSystemCache registry key set and
without 4GT; up to 448 MB with 4GT.

See Also

4-Gigabyte Tuning
IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE
Physical Address Extension

Send comments about this topic to Microsoft

Build date: 12/17/2009

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ContentBug
Community Content
Add new content Annotations
robitpro ... Thomas Lee | Edit
Memory Limits
| Show History

Well, that's not logical - 64-bit Vista Business can have up to 128GB RAM, while 64-bit Windows Server
2008 Standard can only have 32GB. Standard Edition is expensive enough to justify increasing the limit to
128GB in my opinion. Why should buying the next version up, Enterprise Edition, allow a 64-increase in
memory (up to 2TB!) - unless Standard Edition is being gradually phased out? Hopefully this will be done
with Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 1? I can understand Web Edition being limited to just 32GB
though.

That said, most of the memory limits make sound sense.

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ContentBug
Windows
2003
mn8026 | Edit | Show History
x64

There was a Windows 2003 x64 verison i.e. NON R2 so why does it list this as Not applicable ? Should be
32gb for x64 same as R2 version?

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XP /
Vista
DNoonon ... Thomas Lee | Edit | Show History
x86

WROTE:

XP and Vista can only truly manage ~3GB of Physical RAM. 4GB is misleading.

Quote:

Xp and Vista can truly manage ~4GB of physical RAM, but shows only the "available" ram. If you have a
onboard vídeo with 512mb and something else on-board to complete 1gb, your manager will show only
3GB "available".

QUOTE: PP

Xp and Vista can truly manage ~4GB of physical RAM

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Enable
PAE
for full
use of Angelo D_Elia ... Morten_W | Edit | Show History
4GB
RAM

http://...

The above link describes how to set up PAE (Physical Address Extension) on Vista 32 bits (It can be done
in other 32 bits Windows), so that it can make use of 4GB RAM, not just ~3.5GB.

To authors of this message: Please, read how PAE works.

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Facts
MS4U ... Arinath | Edit | Show History

• A 32 bit OS can only use 4GB of memory total, that means if you have 4GB of ram and your
graphic card has 1GB of ram, you have a total of 5GB of memory.

• Out of that 5GB of memory, you can only use 4GB total. 1GB the graphic card will take up, so
now the 32bit OS can only use 3GB.

• Enabling PAE, will limit to the OS to 2GB total. What PAE does is dedicate 2GB to OS and the
other 2GB to anything other then the OS. Apparently some people don't understand how PAE
works and think that some how it can magically make a 32bit XP use more then 4GB, which is
 impossible, so after noticing my explanation is not getting through, I thought a visual from MS
itself might help sink it in, you can see it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

• Vista 32bit can see only 3.5GB of ram total. The new sp1 only reports how much memory you
have intalled, not how much memory you can use.

AH! I was going to post these 'inconvenient facts' myself. the 'PAE' (please READ about your acronyms,
people!) means 'Physical Address Extension'
Why is that important? the last word, really. 'Extension'. this does NOT enable you to use more than 4GB
ram. Face facts people. This is a form of some memory management features,
more than anything else. This isn't even a 'Microsoft thing'. it's a 32-bit computing limitation. the
'Microsoft thing' part comes in because they've somehow given people
the idea that using this boot flag can somehow magically let your computer address more ram than any
32-bit OS is capable of.
I blame their marketing department. Stupid buggers.
And yes, there's a page on microsoft that DOES say that it allows you to use more than 4GB ram. THAT's
where people got this idea.

If you want and bought more than 4GB of ram. suck it up and get a real 64-bit OS already.
You could afford the RAM, so go do it. If it's the cost of windows 64-bit that's stopping you,
go download the 64-bit version of ubuntu or something it's free. And if you hate MS, you should want to
do that anyway.
But above all, quit ranting. MS isn't going to 'fix' anything because the users rant. This should be painfully
obvious to us all by now.
I mean jesus, just look at IIS if you hope that they will one day 'fix' thier OS....

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ContentBug
Conflicting
information
about 64-bit
XP limit
eezvmt | Edit | Show History
(inconsistent
with KB
283247)

The limit for 64-bit XP is given as 128 GB, while on the support site,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283247/en-us, it is given as 16 GB!

What is correct, 16 GB or 128 GB?

Some customers have been reported problems with running 64-bit XP on 32 GB RAM. Can you clarify if 32
Gb RAM is supported and if so, what was the purpose of information in KB 283247

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ContentBug
How much
windows
VISTA 64-
bit
Chikitin | Edit | Show History
dedicates
to a 32-bit
application!

I running windwos Vista 64-bit with 8-GB of ram. Most of my applications are 32-bit applications. How
much RAM can VISTA dedicates to 32-bit application?

cs
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Facts
in
Victor.S ... MS4U | Edit | Show History
error

"Apparently some people don't understand how PAE works and think that some how it can magically make
a 32bit XP use more then 4GB, which is impossible, so after noticing my explanation is not getting
through, I thought a visual from MS itself might help sink it in, you can see it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx"

I also mistakenly thought a 32bit operating system could only use 4GB, having only 32 address bits to
work with. But as you can see from the tables above, 32bit Windows Server 2008 can use up to 64GB of
physical memory. Turning on the PAE feature modifies the virtual address mapping used by the processor
hardware. There is a good explanation on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

Very basically, each process is still limited to 4GB because of the 32bit addresses, but the OS can use a
processor control register to map that 4GB space above the 4GB. So process "A" might have it's 4GB
virtual address space start in physical ram at 8GB, process "B" at 12GB, etc.

Many people will doubt this because of their personal experience with Microsoft 32bit desktop operating
systems. Microsoft has specifically limited the desktops to 4GB for driver compatibility reasons.

Correction, read my facts again and you will see I specifically said "XP 32 bit", second I point to ms's
own site and you take us to wiki which anybody can edit? since when is wiki's info more reliable then ms's
own site when we discussing ms's OS? lol

In short XP 32-bit can't see more then 4GB of ram total no matter what you do, and its clearly
stated here by MS:http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

yes other 32-bit OS-es can use more then 4GB of ram but not XP 32-bit

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ContentBug
Answer
s Pacoup | Edit | Show History

"I running windwos Vista 64-bit with 8-GB of ram. Most of my applications are 32-bit
applications. How much RAM can VISTA dedicates to 32-bit application?"

64 bit editions of Windows can only attribute a total of 4 GiB of RAM to any single 32 bit virtual memory
instance (or application), regardless of your total RAM. The reason is simple, 64 bit editions of Desktop
Windows run on the x86-64 architecture, which is a processor architecture capable of running both 64 and
32 bit instructions, limiting 32 bit instructions (or applications) to what 32 bit limits them to, thus, 4 GiB
of RAM.

Intel and AMD's specification of PAE does support the x86-64 architecture but the software layer of
Microsoft's PAE (the API), called AWE, is not supported on 64 bit editions of Windows, so Windows Vista
64 bit cannot attribute more than 4 GiB of RAM for a 32 bit application.

In fact, true 64 bit architectures like the Intel Itanium processor do not support 32 bit applications. The
only reason 32 bit applications work on 64 bit editions of desktop Windows is because the very
architecture at its core, called x86-64 (often erroneously shortened to x64), is a hybrid architecture
capable of running both 32 bit and 64 bit instructions.

It's also the reason why drivers may not work in 32 bit, but applications will, on Windows Vista 64 bit. The
Windows Vista 64 bit kernel is written in 64 bit, and thus, drivers must also be written in 64 bit. If
Microsoft would have made the kernel in 32 bit, expanded support would have had to rely on PAE, but
drivers wouldn't have had to be re-written. In fact, Apple used that strategy with Mac OS X's transition to
64 bit processors and only its future Snow Leopard will have its kernel in 64 bit.

"I also mistakenly thought a 32bit operating system could only use 4GB, having only 32
address bits to work with. But as you can see from the tables above, 32bit Windows Server
2008 can use up to 64GB of physical memory."

Note however that Windows Server 2008 32 bit uses PAE to achieve this.

"The limit for 64-bit XP is given as 128 GB, while on the support site,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283247/en-us, it is given as 16 GB!
What is correct, 16 GB or 128 GB?"

Short answer is 128 GiB of RAM.

While Windows XP Pro 64 bit can theoretically support 128 GiB of RAM, driver issues, lack of motherboard
support and PAE's Intel technical spec limit to 64 GiB can limit this. Very few 32 bit systems will be built to
handle 128 GiB of RAM as the use of a 64 bit operating system becomes much more advantageous in this
situation.

I have an article on my blog, Pacoup.com, but you'll have to find it yourself as I cannot link to my own
articles on MSDN.

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ContentBug
64Bit
CPU/32Bit
application
Which
operating
system fabulous Fab | Edit | Show History
will
provide
maximum
memory

I need to select an operating system for a server that runs on Xeon 64Bit (5080) platform. I have an
application that needs as much memory as possible. Which operating system version setup will provide
the maximum memory to this 32 bit application?
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x64
Client
Maximum
128GB GreenCat | Edit | Show History
limit is
not fact.

But, fact in the few past.

If talking only by design、 even XP x64 can treats 32TB.
2 socket hardware, such as Opteron 2000 number processor platform had maximum memory 128GB.
Microsoft says support that only what it was possible to prove.

And now, Xeon 5500 number processor platform can support maximum up to 144GB.
Microsoft will do the proof examination of 144GB in the near future.
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Confusion
about
kernel
memory Helge Klein | Edit | Show History
limits and
PAE?

There seems to be some confusion about memory limits for the kernel and each process on 32-bit
systems. I have written several articles that explain all that (and PAE, by the way) in great detail:

http://blogs.sepago.de/helge/2008/01/23/windows-x64-all-the-same-yet-very-different-part-2/
http://blogs.sepago.de/helge/2008/05/25/x64-my-terminal-servers-run-just-fine-with-32-bits-and-
81216-gb-ram/

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questions
about
memory
limitation rayraymond ... GreenCat | Edit | Show History
of 32 bit
windows

Community Content is not question place.

Go to Microsoft Answers.
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Windows
7
Ultimate
64bit w/
4GB
Dennis V. ... GreenCat | Edit | Show History
RAM
shows
3.25GB
usable

Community Content is not question place.

Go to Microsoft Answers.

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Windows
XP /
Vista / 7
x32 3.5GB
Native TheHinac ... GreenCat | Edit | Show History
Limitation,
not 4?
haha

Community Content is not question place.

Go to Microsoft Answers.

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64/32
bit
uestion
notsoluckyluke | Edit | Show History
for
DAW

hello all. thanks for these very useful numbers. now me being a noob, i have a question since i dont really
understand the per process thing.

so i wwork with cubase 5 64 bit version on win 7 ulimate 64 bit. no let say i add a kontakt (sampler) 32
bit. cubase 5 is then a host for this konakt. so my question is since it says per process, does kontakt have
4 gb ram and cubase has another 4 gb of ram? or how do i have to understand this per process?

thank you
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Doesn't
include Thomas_Foolery | Edit | Show History
Windows
2008 &
Windows
7 info

This document is out of date as it doesn't include the limitations of Windows 2008 and Windows 7. For
example, nonpaged pool, page pool and system cache are not listed.
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Windows 7:
Installed
memory(RAM):
4.00 GB (2.74
DavidFilmer | Edit | Show History
GB usable)
- ??????? 2.74
GB ??????????

I have Windows 7 (32-bit) and 4 gigs of RAM. I expected to see ~3.5 gigs usable. But System Information
informs me that I have 4.00 GB, but only 2.74 GB usable.

Does Windows 7 have some strange memory limitation below the 32-bit limit?????

Thanks!

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Windows 7:
Installed
memory(RAM):
4.00 GB (2.74
DavidFilmer | Edit | Show History
GB usable)
- ??????? 2.74
GB ??????????

Never mind - I have shared memory on my graphics card which is taking away memory from my system.
Mystery solved.

Cheers!