I want to run a triple boot system with Windows XP booting from one hard drive and Win&/Linux booting from separate partitions on another. I have an extra 4 gigs of memory I want to add. I assume if I add it then XP will just not see the extra ram.
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I want to run a triple boot system with Windows XP booting from one hard drive and Win&/Linux booting from separate partitions on another. I have an extra 4 gigs of memory I want to add. I assume if I add it then XP will just not see the extra ram.
XP won't care.... The other apps probably won't care either and you'll be wasting your time;) Unless of course you're using some really ram hungry linux apps.
It can cause memory faults if you are running XP 32-bit. XP 64-bit will accept 8GB of RAM happily. At least that is my experience. (Admittedly, I've had limited experience with 32-bit XP.)
If you aren't spending all of your time in it, it's probably not an issue to worry about.
Not sure how much time I will be spending on each OS yet. I got the ram a while ago for another computer but never used it so it's just sitting around at the moment.
Use it for sure. Worst thing that can happen is you either take it out or don't boot into XP. ;)
32bit will only recognize 3.25GB OK. 64 Bit Win 7 home premium can see 16GB. Win 7 pro, ultimate can see as much as you can fit.
Doom, as Kujoe said, XP 32 or 64 bit wont see all the ram.
What I would do if you're using that much memory, is only have the one OS on your HDD, just a linux distro.
Then install sun virtualbox and virtualise XP. You can then dedicate as much memory and HDD space as you want, without ever having to resize partitions or muck about.
A 32-bit *nix distro won't be able to use all the RAM either.
I thought about that a little while ago and installed virtualbox but I didn't go any further. WinXP is installed on a separate partition on one hard drive. I have no desire to mess with that drive as it is setup and working the way I want it to at the moment. Win7/Linux are going on a separate hard drive that is empty at the moment. I only got Win7 so I can play DX11 games I do not have plans to use it for anything else. I'd like to get Win7/linux running. If I ever get time I can rearrange my hard drives and maybe give each it's own partition on my main 1 TB hard drive.
This is probably true in many cases, but, in reality, it depends on what other hardware requires addressable memory space. The last 32 bit Windows install I ran saw more than 3.5GB of the installed 4GB.
Any recent 32-bit *nix distro will likely support PAE (36-bits or 64 GB of addressable memory).