Home version of windows limits your RAM

[taltamir]

I just noticed that win7 home versions cap on addressable ram is ridiculously low to artificially differentiate them fro the pro versions. Pretty nasty surprise there MS...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx

Everyone knows about the 32bit limitation on windows to 4GB... however of note are:
1. Win7 starter 32bit only is limited to 2GB
2. Windows 7 Home Basic is limited to 8GB.
3. Windows 7 Home Premium is limited to 16GB.

The limits are not really significant with Pro, enterprise and ultimate (192GB) nor with win8 (128GB or 512GB depending on version)

 

[dagamer34]

Because there are plenty of home users running around with 32GB RAM or more in their systems?

 

[taltamir]

Because there are plenty of home users running around with 32GB RAM or more in their systems?

I got 16GB of ram in my system. Home starter would limit me to 2GB and Home Basic x64 would limit me to 8GB.
And you can go over 16GB without jumping straight to 32GB.

 

[Anteaus]

And your not going to get a Home Starter or Home Basic license unless your scraping the bottom of the barrel. Those licenses come with the cheapest of PCs. No one that builds their own machine is getting less than Home Premium, and anyone who needs more that 16GB ram is getting Pro. I can't think of one machine I've ever crossed that made me say, "you know I really want to add more ram but my OS won't let me" except for 32-bit to 64-bit comparisons.

The price difference between Home Premium and Pro is around $40. This topic is hardly a big deal.

 

[crazymonkeyzero]

This was always the case...Why would home users need more than 16gb anyway? 4gb is enough for most, 8 is enough for gamers, 16 for enthusiasts lol!

 

[Blain]

MS hasn't kept this information secret, it's been around for a long time.

 

[kleinkinstein]

 

[iluvdeal]

I remember the max on good old Windows XP was 4GB. It's weird Windows 7 Starter's cap is only 2GB as you can't blame hardware address limitations for this number.

 

[Elixer]

Artificial caps on anything pretty much blows.
There is no reason for the x64 version of the OS not to support the max the motherboard supports.

 

[TerryMathews]

Because there are plenty of home users running around with 32GB RAM or more in their systems?

There aren't now but in 3 years?

 

[tweakboy]

Well home edition x32 , if you put 4GB RAM it will only see 3.2GB and you cant use more then that. on x64 iti shouldnt have this limitation.

gl

 

[Anteaus]

I remember the max on good old Windows XP was 4GB. It's weird Windows 7 Starter's cap is only 2GB as you can't blame hardware address limitations for this number.

Windows 7 Starter was for netbooks and other low performance machines. The license price was reduced accordingly to keep the machines competitive. Microsoft put that limitation there to prevent vendors from installing it on machines that it wasn't meant to be sold with.

 

[Soundmanred]

Well home edition x32 , if you put 4GB RAM it will only see 3.2GB and you cant use more then that. on x64 iti shouldnt have this limitation.

gl

Guess who didn't read (or understand) the thread again?

 

[Blain]

I remember the max on good old Windows XP was 4GB. It's weird Windows 7 Starter's cap is only 2GB as you can't blame hardware address limitations for this number.

Granted it wasn't a popular OS, but the limit for XP 64-bit version was 128GB

 

[BFG10K]

I got 16GB of ram in my system. Home starter would limit me to 2GB and Home Basic x64 would limit me to 8GB.

Starter is basically for netbooks, and home basic is only available in "emerging markets", markets that aren't exactly rolling in cash to be splurging for RAM upgrades.

So basically it’s not much of any issue as everyone here would be running Home Premium as a minimum anyway. It supports 16GB, which will remain vastly overkill for several years. I run Home Premium.

 

[cboath]

Starter is basically for netbooks, and home basic is only available in "emerging markets", markets that aren't exactly rolling in cash to be splurging for RAM upgrades.

So basically it’s not much of any issue as everyone here would be running Home Premium as a minimum anyway. It supports 16GB, which will remain vastly overkill for several years. I run Home Premium.

Exactly.

The only thing i've been able to push memory amounts on has been 3D rendering. With that I can easily push 16GB. Not sure if I could push 32GB, but i'm sure if I decided to try a huge resolution (say, 10,800x7,200) and go with very high ranges on Final Gather and GI I could eat up in excess of 32GB. Aside from that, I fail to see where the average person (read 80% of the computing world) would be pushing 4GB, let alone 8GB. Even High end gamers aren't likely getting much past 8GB - if that.

If you actually can make use of 16GB or more, you should be on a pro version of windows anyhow, not a home version, because you've got to be using business level applications to get there. If there was a valid reason for a home user to be using 32GB or more, i'm sure the limits in windows would adjust accordingly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So basically it’s not much of any issue as everyone here would be running Home Premium as a minimum anyway. It supports 16GB, which will remain vastly overkill for several years. I run Home Premium.

"For several years" - what about some of us that will keep running Windows 7 for as long as possible, due to the EULA and other changes in Windows 8 that restrict freedom and ownership of your computer.

How long into the future will 16GB remain viable?

 

[Anteaus]

"For several years" - what about some of us that will keep running Windows 7 for as long as possible, due to the EULA and other changes in Windows 8 that restrict freedom and ownership of your computer.

How long into the future will 16GB remain viable?

You're taking a philosophical stance on a technical situation. We aren't here to argue the virtues of software freedom or what the future post Windows 8 will look like. Things like memory usage are measurable. Whether you will be happy with what you're running within that memory space is you're prerogative.

As a side bar, if you're truly worried about the future of Windows, I suggest you look into getting an Apple or use Linux. Many of us realize that to continue using Windows is to adapt to whatever form it becomes. We can talk about all the horrors of what Windows may become, but until that happens I'd prefer to keep the speculation out of it. So far, Windows 8 hasn't displayed any of the issues you described except for the ARM version, which was explained well in advance by MS.

All else we'll just have to deal with it as it comes.

 

[dagamer34]

You're taking a philosophical stance on a technical situation. We aren't here to argue the virtues of software freedom or what the future post Windows 8 will look like. Things like memory usage are measurable. Whether you will be happy with what you're running within that memory space is you're prerogative.

As a side bar, if you're truly worried about the future of Windows, I suggest you look into getting an Apple or use Linux. Many of us realize that to continue using Windows is to adapt to whatever form it becomes. We can talk about all the horrors of what Windows may become, but until that happens I'd prefer to keep the speculation out of it. So far, Windows 8 hasn't displayed any of the issues you described except for the ARM version, which was explained well in advance by MS.

All else we'll just have to deal with it as it comes.

Lol, this guy shouldn't turn to Apple, they are soldering their RAM directly to the motherboard on their laptops, and is only accessible on the 27" iMac.

 

[Zap]

MS hasn't kept this information secret, it's been around since Vista.

Fixed. :whiste:

I don't recall seeing Starter available anywhere except on netbooks, and I don't recall seeing Home Basic... well, anywhere at all.

Lol, this guy shouldn't turn to Apple, they are soldering their RAM directly to the motherboard on their laptops, and is only accessible on the 27" iMac.

Yeah, that is so fail. I first noticed that in AnandTech's review of the Macbook Airs. Non-upgradable memory, huh? That's as bad as phones and tablets that don't have storage upgrade slots (micro SDHC), which forces you to shell out a lot extra up front for a bit more storage.

 

[videoclone]

Looks like Windows 8 fixes the win7 ram issue, and even goes overkill

Windows 8 - 128GB Of ram... ( Only server board with 16 Dim Slot's could get 128GB and even then why would a system like that run Windows 8 non pro. )
Windows 8 Pro - 512GB of ram ( No chance anyone can get this amount of ram on any PC or Server and would be pointless running windows 8 Pro on a system like that.

 

[taltamir]

Lol, this guy shouldn't turn to Apple, they are soldering their RAM directly to the motherboard

Apple solders everything directly to motherboard... ram, CPU, batteries... if it can be soldered to the mobo they will do it.
I will never buy apple.

"For several years" - what about some of us that will keep running Windows 7 for as long as possible, due to the EULA and other changes in Windows 8 that restrict freedom and ownership of your computer.

How long into the future will 16GB remain viable?

People are still using winXP even though its 10 years old.

 

[TemjinGold]

And 4 gbs of ram is still fine.

 

[tcsenter]

So grab yourself some Win7 Pro copies while you still can. 16GB is a LOT of RAM for a home user even five years from now. If you were a power home user, you'd have Windows Pro or Ultimate version, anyway. As for DDR3 laptops, they are limited to 16GB MAX (assuming 2 slots), but typically only support 8GB officially. Even Micro-ATX boards with 2 DDR3 slots only support 16GB MAX unbuffered. Finally, you could use one of those RAM Drive utilities to make some use of the unavailable RAM.

 

[hhhd1]

At the time of windows 7 release, 16gb of ram was an overkill, the common ddr2 motherboards at the time didn't even support that much.

I still think for home users and gamers it is an overkill.

And since the world now is focusing on mobile/handheld devices with low specs, I doubt we will see a need to actually have more than 16gb of ram any time soon.

Any game developer today makes sure that their software will run on PC as well as consoles (PS3 or XBOX), so he cant make the software uses allot more resources than those would have.