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Each 32-bit process gets 2 GiB of virtual memory to use, regardless of how much physical memory is actually in the system.

You are correct. Sorry, I was lazy in my post, and forgot to add 'virtual' to most every mention of 'RAM'. I did mean it that way, but, of course, that's not what I wrote. :p
 
I didn't think that it was conceivable to run NT with virtual memory turned off. Is this a brain fart from OS9 days?

Nope, NT and its derivatives can all have VM disabled.

If you know for a fact that you will not be running any/enough programs that will make you run out of physical memory, it can speed up Windows a decent amount to disable VM. In XP, it's under System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Settings -> Advanced -> Change -> 'No Paging File' -> Set -> OK, then reboot.

I generally do this on HD-space-limited computers, computers with painfully slow hard drives, and virtual machines (obviously only when I know there is sufficient physical RAM present for my needs; as what would normally be a request to enlarge the page file likely becomes a system crash with VM off.) Any 'Live' Windows CD also has to, by its nature, have VM off. (Norton "Symantec Recovery Disc"s, for example. These also insist on having a certain minimum of physical RAM to make sure they don't run out.)
 
NT cannot run without virtual memory, period.

Nope, NT and its derivatives can all have VM disabled.

... In XP, it's under System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Settings -> Advanced -> Change -> 'No Paging File' -> Set -> OK, then reboot.

Disabling the backing store for virtual memory is not the same as disabling virtual memory. You are disabling paging of virtual memory, not virtual memory.

Disabling paging just means that the amount of virtual memory in use cannot grow beyond the number of physical pages. (It may appear that more is in use than physical memory, but that's because some shared pages are counted more than once.)

"Virtual memory" fundamentally means that the memory address seen by a program for an object is not the same as the actual physical memory address. Two programs can read an integer at address 0x0056EFAC and get different results - because the two programs have different physical addresses for the same virtual address. Memory protection (something that classic Mac OS lacked) is part of virtual memory - programs cannot corrupt each others' memory because they do not share physical addresses, even though they are using the same virtual addresses.

Virtual memory also has the big advantage that contiguous virtual memory does not need to be contiguous in physical memory. A large request for contiguous virtual memory can be created by using a lot of fragmented physical pages. No need to restart to clean up free memory so that a program can be loaded.

Most of these features of virtual memory are required for NT to run. It is not necessary to have a pagefile so that memory in use can exceed the actual physical RAM - but disabling the pagefile has no effect on the other features of virtual memory. Someone with a classic Mac OS mindset might call this "disabling virtual memory", but that is quite incorrect.

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory for a much more thorough explanation)


(obviously only when I know there is sufficient physical RAM present for my needs; as what would normally be a request to enlarge the page file likely becomes a system crash with VM off.)

Whatever little bit of speed you might gain will quickly be offset by a system or application crash caused by running out of memory.

Most experts advise to not remove the pagefile (see If I have a Windows XP machine that has lots of memory, can I improve performance by removing the pagefile?).

In my experience, on memory rich machines I declare the pagefile to have an initial size of 16 MiB, and let it grow to several GiB. Windows will usually reclaim pages from cache rather than expanding the pagefile. In any event, I never need to worry about a failure because I didn't make the right guess about memory usage.
 
this is pretty cool! i'm getting a macbook pro in the coming months and i will buy vista to dual boot...

with that said, my primary windows system still has xp. i have a free upgrade from dell sitting on my bookshelf, i installed and ended up putting xp back 3 days later. it's still not ready to use in a web dev environment, but it's just fine as an os to browse, check email, etc.
 
boot camp error

Hi guys, since they update boot camp I decided to uninstall the previous one, and go for the new one. I burned down the cd and all the rest. After formatting, the laptop said there was an error with a file - it couldn't be moved, so I was forced to reboot and boot from cd. After I did so, I could normally install windows from the cd and all seems to work fine so far, apple remote included. Anyone had the same trouble?
 
am i the only person who gets a blue screen during installation? right after the trackpad installs i get the blue screen.

also does this allow us to use the brightness and sound keys in vista? so far i cant get it to work.

thanks
 
windows upgrade disks

hi guys, I was wondering if anyone tried to install windows vista on boot camp from an upgrade vista disk, on of those that come with the microsoft action pack? they say "ms windows vista business". Thanks for the help!
 
am i the only person who gets a blue screen during installation? right after the trackpad installs i get the blue screen.

also does this allow us to use the brightness and sound keys in vista? so far i cant get it to work.

thanks

Hold FN while you press the keys.
 
Sorry if this topic has been covered already, but I didn't notice it.

So I installed the BC1.2 drivers last night and everything went fine. I then restarted and once windows loads up I get the Blue Screen of death and my computer restarts its self. I am really confused....

I had to load windows in safe mode and set the OS back to a prior version of windows before I had loaded the drivers.

Anybody else have this issue? Are their any fixes?

Thanks

MBP 2.16 CD/2G of ram/Dell wireless 1500 802.11n card/and a partridge in a peartree
 
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