Virtual Memory Size Restriction??

[Beno]

Hi Guys,

I am reading in my A+ certification book that in a windows environment, the op.sys has 4GB of virtual memory......now I used to know why it was 4GB but for the life of me, I have forgotten so if there are any genious's out there who could explain why then please go right ahead.

Hint: I think it has something to do with windows being a 32 bit Op.Sys!

Thanks every1

Beno

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Have a nice day

[Ghost_Hacker]

Here's a tidbit from the MSDN libary that explains the 4GB virtual memory system.

"Linear addressing, in which memory addresses begin at 0 and continue in 1-byte increments to the extent of physical memory, replaces segmented memory schemes where each address begins with a segment number. Because virtual memory is limited only by the number of unique addresses, 32-bit addressing allows four billion bytes (4 gigabytes) of address space.

The Virtual Memory Manager allocates to each process a unique protected set of virtual addresses available to the process's threads. Each process has a separate address space, so a thread in one process cannot view or modify the memory of another process without authorization. This address space appears to be 4 gigabytes (GB) in size, with 2 GB reserved for program storage and 2 GB reserved for system storage."

Hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"

[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 02-20-2001).]