Reliable PAE patch for Windows 7 Ultimate

Question

I just installed Windows 7 Ultimate x86 (32-bit) on a computer with 16GB of RAM, so naturally it won't use all the available memory because my system is 32-bit.

I searched for a solution and found about patching the kernel with PAE. I found a couple packages that are meant for this task:

• PatchFor4GB (http://www.mediafire.com/download/w4h2prfttb2q83f/ReadyFor4GB.rar)
• PatchPae (http://wj32.org/wp/download/PatchPae.zip)

I tried them, PatchFor4GB adds a boot option to the bootloader list, which is supposed to be the kernel-patched one, but everytime I boot with it, I only get a blank screen on my computer after the Windows logo splash and then it gets stuck there.

With PatchPae, the added loader option just didn't boot the system at all.

However, I also tried this in an installation of a Virtual Machine of the same system, assigning it 6GB of RAM and the patches worked like a charm.

Because I use with my computer some hardware that uses privative drivers made ONLY for 32bit systems, I CANNOT INSTALL THE 64-BIT VERSION OF WINDOWS (they're a bit old, trust me, they don't work in Windows 64-bit). Please eliminate that as a possible answer. Sorry.

Do you know any reliable way to make my Windows 7 Ultimate able to use the total of the RAM my computer has installed? Any graphic or command-line solution is more than welcome and appreciated :D

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that in both of the cases I mentioned, if I boot in Safe Mode (with or without networking/command prompt), I can reach to the graphic interface.

Thanks in advance!!

Solution

No, there is no reliable patch though you could always upgrade to an nvidia/ati graphics card. In fact, poorly written drivers are the reason that Microsoft disabled access to memory above 4GB on 32 bit consumer OSes in the first place.

Comments

[Scott Chamberlain]

Can you tell us more about the device that is 32 bit only? This is kinda a XY problem, that your device does not support 64 bit. Tell us more about what the device is and how it interfaces (is it a USB device or a PCI device?) and maybe we can solve the root cause and you can move to a 64 bit system.

[magicandre1981]

which GPU do you use? Intel HD graphic from an Intel i Core CPU? In this case you're out of luck. The drivers are buggy.

[Mokubai]

Patching PAE is like putting a band-aid on the bloody stump where you just got your arm ripped off. Sure it might stop you bleeding out immediately but just one badly written driver can pop that band-aid and kill you stone dead. You would be better either dual booting to 32-bit, having a dedicated machine for this POS hardware or seeing if you can pass the device through to a 32-bit VM on a 64-bit host OS (it often does work quite well). Using this hardware on a beefy high powered computer with lots of RAM with a 32-bit OS is a waste of a computer.

[phuclv]

there's no reason to use PAE. It has worse performance than even x86

[Ramhound]

This does not answer the author's question because its very likely you had an entirely different problem than the author.

[fixer1234]

Welcome to Super User. You can freely edit your own posts but for your protection, this must be done under the original user account. It looks like you have created a second account, which will also interfere with your ability to comment within your thread. See Merge my accounts to get your accounts merged, which will solve the problem. For reference, the answer was posted under superuser.com/users/688346/janusz and the edit was proposed under superuser.com/users/688359/janusz.

[Admin]

That's right. As I am told, Windows XP RTM and SP1 could access above 4GB memory limit with PAE but Microsoft disabled this ability in SP2. If I just remembered where I read this...