Enable PAE in x86 32-bit Windows Server 2003 and 2000 to Use Large 4GB or More RAM Memory

After installing Windows 2000 (Datacenter Server or Advanced Server) or Windows 2003, system properties shows that only around 3.37 GB of physical memory (RAM) is available for application and system use, although 4 GB or more RAM modules have been installed, and BIOS can correctly identifies the full installed size of physical memory, which means that the motherboard and x86 or x64 CPU processor can support more than 4 GB of physical memory.

32-bit Windows operating system depends on PAE (Physical Address Extension) feature to use more than 4 GB of physical memory. On most Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 system, especially those run in NUMA mode on a NUMA-capable computer. PAE is disabled by default. PAE is enabled by default only if DEP (Data Protection Execution) is enabled on a computer that supports hardware-enabled DEP, or if the computer is configured for hot-add memory devices in memory ranges beyond 4 GB.

Thus, if PAE is not enabled in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 (for example, if DEP is turned off by administrator), the system may not able to detect, identify and see more than 4GB memory, and will have to allocate slightly more than 3GB of memory for system and application only as some memory address space has to be reserved and mapped for system devices and peripherals.

To enable PAE in Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 (and Windows XP), append the /PAE switch to the end of the line of operating system in the Boot.ini file. To disable PAE, use the /NOPAE switch. The Boot.ini normally located in the root folder (i.e. C:\) with Read-Only and Hidden attributes, which are required to be removed before the file can be edited.

For example,

Original Boot.ini:

Code:

[boot loader]

timeout=0

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT=”Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server”

/fastdetect

Change the Boot.ini to become:

Code:

[boot loader]

timeout=0

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT=”Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server”

/fastdetect /PAE

For Bootcfg command, use:

bootcfg /raw "/pae" /A /ID 1

Restart the computer after modification to make the change effective.

Note that even with PAE enabled, there is still memory limit imposed by the operating system itself. The table below list the maximum memory support with PAE enabled for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Most 32-bit client based Windows operating system, such as Windows XP and Windows Vista (see way to use large memory of more than 4GB in 32-bit Windows Vista), has OS level limit that restricts the maximum amount of memory able to be used to 4GB.


Operating system : Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Maximum memory support with PAE : 8 GB of physical RAM

Operating system : Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
Maximum memory support with PAE : 32 GB of physical RAM

Operating system : Windows XP (all versions)
Maximum memory support with PAE : 4 GB of physical RAM*

Operating system : Windows Server 2003 (and SP1), Standard Edition
Maximum memory support with PAE : 4 GB of physical RAM*

Operating system : Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
Maximum memory support with PAE : 32 GB of physical RAM

Operating system : Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
Maximum memory support with PAE : 64 GB of physical RAM

Operating system : Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition
Maximum memory support with PAE : 64 GB of physical RAM

Operating system : Windows Server 2003 SP1, Datacenter Edition
Maximum memory support with PAE : 128 GB of physical RAM

how to add /PAE in windows 2008/win 7 ?

1. Click Start- All Programs-Accesories-Commando Prompt - "Right Click-Run as administrator"
2. "Bcdedit /set PAE forceenable"
3. Restart Server


cheers!!!
Gaurang Patel

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Run Charts in ConfigMgr Reports when the Reporting Point is located on a Windows Server 2008 x64 server / HTTP Error 500.19 – Internal Server Error

At a customer site last week, I used Windows Server 2008 x64 to host all the ConfigMgr roles, including the Reporting point. I also installed the Microsoft Office Web Components to add chart support to some of the reports. But I kept getting this error “This report has a chart, but the Microsoft Office Web Components required to view charts are not installed on the Reporting Point. Please contact your administrator." I remember reading Some blogs about changing the whole web server in Windows Server 2003 x64 to run as a 32 bit web server. So narrowing down the problem is that the Microsoft Office Web Components is 32 bit application and the Reporting Point is running in the Default Application Pool (DefaultAppPool) on the web server, which is running 64 bit.

You might have read that in Windows Server 2008 x64 web server is it possible to run different applications in different worker processes. This means that by changing the application pool for the Reporting Point to run as a 32 bit application, is it possible run the Charts in the ConfigMgr web reports. So I did and problem solved.

After installing System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 (SCCM) on a Windows Server 2008 SP x64 system, I decided to install also the Reporting Point on this Site Server.

SQL Reporting Services and ConfigMgr Report Services Point configured properly and I didn't had any issues copying and running reports on IIS 7.0. But when I came to a report that had a graph I got the following message:

"This report has a chart, but the Microsoft Office Web Components required to view charts are not installed on the Reporting Point. Please contact your administrator."

I downloaded and installed in the Office 2003 Add-in: Office Web Components from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7287252c-402e-4f72-97a5-e0fd290d4b76&DisplayLang=en

After that, I tried to run again the report and still I was getting the same informational message.

After doing some research on the issue I found that I need to create a custom Application Pool with enable32BitAppOnWin64 set to True. This because the worker responsible to execute the graphs needs to operate in 32bit mode. Then I've assigned the reporting point web site to the custom 32bit application pool and when I tried to open the reporting point web site on a browser I got a new error message.

HTTP Error 500.19 – Internal Server Error

So I started wondering what causes the problem. After some research again I identified that it was WSUS 3.0 SP2 x64 and more specifically the 64bit version compression module (suscomp.dll).

Therefore the solutions on this were the following. Either disable totally the compression scheme on the web site, but this will cause wsus responses to be uncompressed and this will cause some performance degradation. Or to replace the 64bit version of suscomp.dll with the 32bit version.

To view the compression scheme, run the following command

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list config -section:system.webServer/httpCompression

the command will display the compression scheme for the webserver. Schemes are registered globally therefore by removing them, the compression is disabled on the webserver.

To remove the compression scheme type:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/httpCompression /-[name='xpress']

To add the compression scheme type:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/httpCompression /+[name='xpress',doStaticCompression='false',dll='%windir%\system32\inetsrv\suscomp.dll']

References

Run Charts in ConfigMgr Reports when the Reporting Point is located on a Windows Server 2008 x64 serverhttp://uje.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DAE27042D25E8A2A!310.entry

500.19 Error When Enabling 32-bit Application Poolhttp://forums.iis.net/t/1149768.aspx

Error message when you visit a Web site that is hosted on IIS 7.0: "HTTP Error 500.19 – Internal Server Error"http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942055