Allocating more Memory to Windows.

[Komentra]

I'm on Lion and used the .pdf file provided by Apple to install Windows 7 and it installed just fine. My only issue is that whenever booted into Windows 7 it shows that I only have 2gb of memory compared to the 8gb's my system actually has.

It's kind of pain because usually when I do boot into Windows it's just to play a game that is not available on Mac and there are certain games where having my full amount of memory would be great.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Sincci]

Sounds like your Windows isn't 64bit version. The 32bit version cannot allocate more than 4gb of ram and this includes the reserved system memory for the operating system itself (in some mac models the gpu doesn't have any memory of it's own, so it reserves system memory in order to actually work). Usually this can leave you with something like 2gb of free memory even if you have 8gb installed.

The good thing is that in most cases you can activate 64bit Windows 7 with the same cd-key that you had with the 32bit version. You can actually download the whole 64bit Windows 7 image for free from the internet and it's legal since it works as a trial without the key for 30 or 90 days (can't remember), but since you most likely have a legit key, that's not a problem. Just download it, burn it to the dvd and reinstall the Windows 7 (x64 version) and you should be able to use all your installed memory.

 

[Komentra]

Sounds like your Windows isn't 64bit version. The 32bit version cannot allocate more than 4gb of ram and this includes the reserved system memory for the operating system itself (in some mac models the gpu doesn't have any memory of it's own, so it reserves system memory in order to actually work). Usually this can leave you with something like 2gb of free memory even if you have 8gb installed.

The good thing is that in most cases you can activate 64bit Windows 7 with the same cd-key that you had with the 32bit version. You can actually download the whole 64bit Windows 7 image for free from the internet and it's legal since it works as a trial without the key for 30 or 90 days (can't remember), but since you most likely have a legit key, that's not a problem. Just download it, burn it to the dvd and reinstall the Windows 7 (x64 version) and you should be able to use all your installed memory.

Thanks a lot. Went ahead and installed the 64 bit version and now it's showing all 8gb's.