Breaking The 16gig Wall In Windows 7?

Hello all. I was advised by MaxTurner, a Major Geek at this link that I should try my question over here. I have Windows 7 Home and I'm not looking to upgrade to Pro or Windows 10, so I was wondering if any ways have been devised to force Windows to utilized the second 16Gig set of RAM I have installed (32 total). If not in Windows, is there a third party app I can use to at least free it up so other programs on the OS can see it and draw from it? Otherwise, I'll just be pulling these sticks out of the machine.

 

I don't know of anything you can do except move to Window 7 Pro. That said, I highly doubt you would see any performance gains. 16GB is already a huge amount.

If you want to see a performance boost, and have not already done so, move to a SSD.

 

Also have a look at this link for more nifo.
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/index.php?threads/code-licensing-limits-ram-amounts.306448/

 

I agree, unless you deal with virtualization or run any rendering engines then having 16GB or more ram is useless (now). Having an SSD is the best bang for the buck, so to speak.

Now, If you look at my signature, I'm not the norm, and my new computer has twice this ram. I'm currently needing more, hope that 128 will last me a bit more.

Personal preference for an SSD would be samsung 850 pro, but the samsung 850 evo is good enough.

 

About the only thing that might use your excess memory is a RAMDisk, I've never tested one on a machine with 'too much' memory though.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/softperfect_ram_disk.html (there are a number of others, free, free but restricted, paid.

http://archive.techarp.com/showarticlee6c7.html?artno=816&pgno=0

http://www.geckoandfly.com/21507/ramdisk-virtual-disk-memory/

 

I have played around with using a ram disk, and I find it interesting. I threw WoW on a ramdisk. Mostly loading was quite nice, other than that, not much of a benefit.

 

You can get a Pro license key for as little as $35. I've dealt with this outfit in the past, and they are a Microsoft partner.

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Mic...KJfeGwLse92toIAr_1HsoKDAAq7UNVLkJHxoCjGvw_wcB

 

2018 Update:

I've finally gotten a little free time on my hands, so I wanted to dust off this thread and see if I can could get any progress on my RAM issue. As mentioned below, I still have my 32 GB installed in Windows 7, which the OS says only 16 GB is usable (thus the wall).

I'm trying to figure out how to utilize this wasted RAM hardware that's installed and put it to good use. Most people have recommended a RAMDisk. However, I'm not 100% sure what the real benefit would be to my system. The biggest thing I've read has to do with either installing programs to it (which I don't do a ton of) or running all my temp folder stuff from there. But doesn't that mean I'd have to go in and find any program that may generate a temp folder and point it to the RAMDrive? Would I really see that much of a benefit overall?

Or is there a better way to utilize this extra RAM than the RAMDisk? Thanks!

 

W7 Home Premium is only capable of addressing 16 GB of RAM. If you want more than that, a W7 Pro license is required.

P.S. A RAMDisk uses volatile memory. Once the power is lost, the contents of the RAMDisk are erased. It will still require being backed up.

 

Thanks for the follow up. I'm aware the there is a 16 GB cap and I'll never be able to get the full use out of the 32. Which is why I was hoping there was some way to utilize the extra 16 in other ways. Would it be possible to funnel this somewhere else to get some kind of benefit elsewhere? Or should I just pull it and use the 16GB in another system?