Iol blog ;)

After some days of testing on two different laptops it seems that certain drivers can crash 32-bit Windows 7 (when running the patched kernel with 4 GB RAM).
In this case the blue-screens are probably caused by drivers for a USB sound card.

This may be an explanation why the RAM is restricted by default for 32-bit consumer Windows - there may be just too many drivers that use hard-coded addressing.

Quote: «…“the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista limit the total available memory” to protect users against incompatible drivers.» - now this makes sense.

However, these drivers most likely wouldn't work on 64-bit Windows

Microsoft's solution for 32-bit Windows is to "disable" ~1 GB of RAM and be safe with all lousy drivers that exist.

There is a lot of FUD about RAM limitations for 32-bit Windows, but so far I've found just one good article on that subject (from Geoff Chappell)

As modern hardware can address more than 4 GB of RAM - why is a 32-bit Windows hiding ~ 1 GB of your RAM ?

Maybe MS eventually wants everyone to shift to 64-bit Windows and they let you believe that you cannot use more than 4 GB RAM with 32 bit Windows (or even the full 4 GB) - _{though not true for 32 bit server-versions of Windows !}

As Geoff Chappell points out, this is only a matter of licensing from Microsoft's side…
One could also call it patronizing.

If you patch one byte of the 32-bit Windows kernel you free the RAM from Microsoft's limitations.

I ran some tests both with the original kernel of a 32-bit Windows 7 and a patched one:

Computer → Properties (un-patched kernel)