I've been investigating the 3GB switch some more and learned a few more valuable pieces of the puzzle. If you missed the first two installments, here are the links to them - it's worth reading them first to know what's going on. Then also search this newsgroup for "3GB" to read more discussion on the topic. When I get the time, I will officially publish this installment, but thought this group should know now.
So, what's the secret? In the boot.ini file you can set another switch that controls the amount of memory allocated to the application. Here's my boot.ini file as I am now running.
[boot loader] timeout=5 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3gb limited" /fastdetect /3gb /userva=3000 /SOS multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /SOS multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3gb" /fastdetect /3gb /SOS multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 4\3gb" /fastdetect 4\3gb /SOSIf you look at the [operating systems] section, you will notice that I have
4 entries - all different. This gives me 4 different boot options if that option is turned on. (Check the box & set the time.) Take a look at the part in quotes right after the WINDOWS=. If you read the Microsoft info, you are lead to believe that the only verbiage that can be there is from a set list of possible operating systems. Not true - when I did that all the presented options looked the same. So, customize the list. Now, I haven't tried totally varying from the list, but what you see here does work.The first option is the default that I am currently running. Notice the "/userva=3000" in addition to the "/3gb" at the end - the value is the amount of RAM that is allocated to the application side. I started at 2.5 gb by setting it to 2560. Here XP worked ok, but I hit the wall with SW. So I bumped it to 2816 - same story. So then I wondered if maybe the difference might be just the fact that I enabled the userva switch - nope setting it to the full 3072 gave me back the XP problems. So, therefore the
3000 value. Where's the exact upper limit? I don't know - haven't had the time to tweak it closer. Your mileage may vary.The second line is the "standard" line and is quite valuable to have there in case something goes wrong - like not installing the XP patch first. The third line, of course, is the full 3gb allocation. The fourth line is what Mike Eckstein was told to do with his, but I couldn't get that to make any difference for me.
So, bottom line is if you are constantly working in the 2.0 - 2.5 Commit Charge range, as I currently am, and just turning on the 3gb switch causes other problems, this latest info will probably let you open up enough more memory to get the job done.
WT