[LeeLorean]

You will make Microsoft angry if you do this. They have various versions of Windows 8, and some are more crippled than others.

It enables PAE which is 36bit addressing Microsoft brought in for their server product line. You still only have 4GB per process, though.

I've been using this one for Windows 7. Gives me 64GB http://www.adminsehow.com/2011/03/windows-7-32-bit-pae-patch...

[cpleppert]

I'm pretty sure that not all the drivers(especially graphic ones) fully support PAE. Server versions of PAE would be much easier to support than making sure drivers for win32 would be compatible in a PAE environment.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg4...

Typically, device drivers must be modified in a number of small ways. Although the actual code changes may be small, they can be difficult. This is because when not using PAE memory addressing, it is possible for a device driver to assume that physical addresses and 32-bit virtual address limits are identical. PAE memory makes this assumption untrue.

[_ea1k]

Don't the 32bit and 64bit versions cost the same amount? I'm not sure why this would make MS angry.

[yuhong]

Yea, I think the licensing mechanism was used for this limit just because it was convenient to do so.

[xtrumanx]

How safe is it to use? Have you heard of people having issues with the patch? If things don't work, would it be as simple as removing the patch or would a fresh Windows install be required?