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Windows 2008 or Vista cannot see more than 4GB of RAM

Symptoms

  • Windows 2008 or Vista cannot see more than 4GB of RAM
  • No PAE switch in Windows 2008 or Vista

Resolution

Windows 2008 or Vista does not use boot.ini, therefore you cannot add the typical /pae switch in the boot.ini arc path. For Windows 2008 you must use the BCDedit command to allocate more than 4 GB of RAM.
 
To run the BCDedit command:
  1. Click Start or Pearl and type cmd.
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. This allows you to run cmd in Administrative mode.
  3. Type BCDEdit /set PAE forceenable and press Enter.

Additional Information

For related information, see the Microsoft articles Physical Address Extension and BCDEdit/set.
Note: These links were valid as of April 30, 2010. If you find these links to be broken, provide feedback on the article and VMware will update the article as necessary.

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