Vista SP1 Installed System Memory RAM

One of the aspects that Service Pack 1 changes for Windows Vista is the way that the operating system reports the amount of installed system memory.

The way that Vista SP1 now deals with the physical RAM impacts both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the platform and end users could experience an increase of the memory value reported. According to Microsoft, in the eventuality that physical memory was reserved for the graphics card, or if additional peripherals share the RAM via settings in the system BIOS, and also on computers with more than 3 GB of system memory, Vista SP1 will report the full resources available. 

"This change occurs because Windows Vista with SP1 reports how much physical memory installed on your computer. All versions of Windows NT-based operating systems before Windows Vista Service SP1 report how much memory available to the operating system. This change in Windows Vista SP1 is a reporting change only," Microsoft informed.

Read the full article HERE

Yawn.....so basically, they aren't utilising the RAM, but rather reporting how much was there. If they'd simply use a PAE kernel, you could keep your 32bit OS and still enjoy a lot of RAM. Oh well, at least we won't have to explain to n00bs anymore why they only have 3.2GB of RAM shown out of the 4GB they installed. Meanwhile, I'll keep running Linux where I can decide which kernel, built the way I want it, is running on my system.