How to patch windows 7, 8, 10 32-bit to see above 4gb ram (new patch)

spapakons · 25 Feb 2022

Hello!

I know this has been discussed before many months in a rather old thread, but now I discovered a new patch that works in my current v21H2 build! I created a new thread so this info is not lost in a very old thread.

As we all know Microsoft has restricted all 32-bit Windows versions to 4GB RAM total, no matter how much RAM you have installed in your system. This in practice means 3.2GB (or 3.5GB in very rare cases) available for use while the rest 0.8GB is system reserved. One could suggest to install Windows 10 64-bit to take advantage of the full available RAM, but this is not always easy. For a typical computer with Office and a couple or other applications doing a clean installation of Windows 10 64-bit and reinstalling them is easy. What about a work computer loaded with tens of applications and several GB data? It would be asking for trouble!

In my case, an old Core-i3 laptop recently upgraded with SSD and 8GB RAM, the only option to use all this RAM is to patch Windows 10 32-bit. It is a small file with a script included to patch the system automatically. Once run (as Administrator of course) it creates a new boot entry. The default is to use the patch and see the whole RAM and the second is to run the original system, just in case something goes wrong and you need to restore. So far I have seen at least 4x faster response of my work laptop and no issue. If I ever see a BSOD or any other issue I will report here. I'm looking forward to test it on my old Acer laptop (running Windows 10 Pro 32-bit v21H2 on purpose to maintain compatibility with old games and hardware, also successfully running Windows 11 64-bit on a spare SSD)

Download the patch from this site: Windows Vista/7/8/10 x86 128gb Ram Patch | Operating System Revival

How to patch windows 7, 8, 10 32-bit to see above 4gb ram (new patch)-32-bit-patched-see-8gb-ram.jpg

How to patch windows 7, 8, 10 32-bit to see above 4gb ram (new patch)-32-bit-patched-see-8gb-ram-task-manager.jpg

Disclaimer: Use this at your own risk. I won't be responsible if you lose any data or anything else happens to your system. I'm just trying to help fellow posters that are still stuck with a Windows 32-bit system hard to replace or upgrade to 64-bit.

cereberus · 25 Feb 2022

Interesting - I wonder if it will work in a Hyper-V vm I have of an old 32bit windows installation (purely because of a legacy engineering tool that I lost the installer decades ago). I do not need the RAM really but always good to experiment.

eLPuSHeR · 25 Feb 2022

Thanks for the info.

spapakons · 25 Feb 2022

cereberus said:

Interesting - I wonder if it will work in a Hyper-V vm I have of an old 32bit windows installation (purely because of a legacy engineering tool that I lost the installer decades ago). I do not need the RAM really but always good to experiment.

It should work fine. Even if the old machine has only 4GB RAM, using the full 4GB instead of 3.2GB is a welcome improvement in performance no matter how small.

spapakons · 29 Apr 2022

I recently encountered a weird issue in Microsoft Edge. Every time I did some change at my company's website back-office (add a product, change prices, change the status of an order) and tried to save, I got an error "This page is having a problem, Error code: STATUS_BREAKPOINT". When I refreshed the page it was OK with my changes saved. Also the latest security update would download but would stuck at 20% and do not complete installation. I downloaded the update manually from Microsoft Update Catalog and restarted in non-PAE mode (original). I installed the update and then I restarted back to PAE mode (full RAM usable). I never saw this issue again in Microsoft Edge, any other update installed without any issue. So if you encounter a similar incompatibility, just restart in non-PAE mode, install all updates and you should be fine,

spapakons · 28 Jun 2022

Compatibility report: I did not manage to successfully do the PAE patch in my Acer Extensa 5630EZ laptop, Mobile DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo T7250, 2000 MHz, 4GB RAM, Mobile Intel(R) GMA 4500M (Mobile 4 series), Windows 10 Pro 32-bit v21H2 all updates installed. I guess my chance to succeed was ruined when I unsuccessfully tried to use the older paepatch2 some months ago. Maybe a new installation will succeed, if you have a similar laptop running Windows 7/8/10 32-bit please do it and report here. Of course I won't do a clean Windows 10 32-bit installation just to test it. I already have a working Windows 11 64-bit installation on a spare SSD. In worst case some day I will wipe the Windows 10 32-bit SSD and use it elsewhere and keep using Windows 11 64-bit.