Only 2gigs allowed when installing Vista?

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chineseman

[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm planning to install Vista Home Premium when I get home today and my friend mentioned something about making sure I only have 2gigs of ram installed when doing so? Can anyone verify this? I guess it's not that big of a deal since I can just put back the remaining 2g after the installation.
 
I installed vista 32 bit Home Premium with 4gigs installed, worked fine for me.

However, i did see some bug entries in the bios for my motherboard about 'fixing' such a problem (although in a later bios revision than i had) so it might cause some people a problem.

I say try it with all 4, and if it doesnt work, then try 2.
 
I installed Vista on 2 different systems with 6GB installed. It depends on your motherboard.
 
Vista Business with 4Gb here, not a problem with or without SP1 when installing
 
Depends on the motherboard and if it's 64bit or 32bit. So far as I know it is a 64bit only issue (partly because anyone with 4GB and any sense is running 64bit to actually be able to use their RAM...) Most P35 based boards are fine. Many nForce 680i / 650i boards are affected, and possibly others. I'd recommend you pull one stick and install, shut down, put the other stick in. It won't take any longer, really, and you'll not run in to the problem. If you have a SP1 integrated disc it shouldn't matter regardless -- the issue is supposedly fixed.
 
You can normally have any quantity of physically installed when you're running Vista Setup; but there have been some issues with a few boards.

There are some RAM considerations if you're going over 2GB though. If you're running 32-bit Vista, you're only going to be able to use 3.12GB of the ram (Ref Link). If you're using 64-bit, for home premium it can use up to 16GB of Ram.
 
Well someone correct me if they know otherwise, but you should have 0 issues with that due to ram quantity.
 
I also installed Vista with 4GB on the mb and that was on Asus P5K mb which turns out was prone to that bug but I didn't even know there was a 4GB bug until later. I got it installed fine but do remember some glitch during the install that I fixed somehow. That was a long time ago so can't remember exactly what it was. Like hell I'm opening my case and pulling ram just to install the OS.
 
milkweg said:
I also installed Vista with 4GB on the mb and that was on Asus P5K mb which turns out was prone to that bug but I didn't even know there was a 4GB bug until later. I got it installed fine but do remember some glitch during the install that I fixed somehow. That was a long time ago so can't remember exactly what it was. Like hell I'm opening my case and pulling ram just to install the OS.
Click to expand...

I actually had the same problem on my other system last week, forgot about it. (Asus P5K, q6600, 4GB etc) I just tried the install again and it worked fine.
 
Sweet, thanks for all the replies. I can't wait to get everything up and running. It's gonna be a good weekend of Age of Conan and Basketball. WOOT LAKERS!
 
It seemed to be mostly Nvidia chipsets, but not restricted to just Nvidia chipsets. On your board, you should be fine. On top of that, I believe the fix was incorporated into SP1 anyway.
 
Just to add to this I have 8GB see sig, installed Vista Ult. with no issues, that with both non and with SP1 vers.
 
Just got Vista installed, so far so good but I do have two problems.

When I first boot up my computer and before it normally loads Windows it asks me if I want to load an older Windows version or Vista. I wiped and formatted my C: drive before installing Vista so I'm not sure why it keeps asking. I can load and use Vista with no problems but it's pretty annoying.

Secondly, how do I make it so it stops asking me to authorize the usage of every single program I try to run?
 
I've installed Vista fine on 3GB DDR2 667 @ 533 (32-bit) and on 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066 @ 1088 (64-bit).
 
chineseman said:
Just got Vista installed, so far so good but I do have two problems.

When I first boot up my computer and before it normally loads Windows it asks me if I want to load an older Windows version or Vista. I wiped and formatted my C: drive before installing Vista so I'm not sure why it keeps asking. I can load and use Vista with no problems but it's pretty annoying.

Secondly, how do I make it so it stops asking me to authorize the usage of every single program I try to run?
Click to expand...

The first problem could prolly be solved by typing "msconfig" in the run box, then clicking on "boot" and deleting the OS you wiped out. Insure you delete the right one. AGAIN, insure you delete the right entry.

Edit: (nevermind the last part, Vista will not let you delete it's own entry)

The second issue can be solved if you google "disable UAC". I do recommend doing that until the pc is set up and your programs are installed. Once that is done I recommend turning it back on. It is there for a good reason.
 
chineseman said:
Just got Vista installed, so far so good but I do have two problems.

When I first boot up my computer and before it normally loads Windows it asks me if I want to load an older Windows version or Vista. I wiped and formatted my C: drive before installing Vista so I'm not sure why it keeps asking. I can load and use Vista with no problems but it's pretty annoying.

Secondly, how do I make it so it stops asking me to authorize the usage of every single program I try to run?
Click to expand...

You did a secure wipe and then formatted? Can't have done a wipe because that destroys everything including the mbr. I think you are getting that issue because you only formatted and it left the old mbr still there. Vista does something funky to HDD's. If you ever go back to XP you have to make sure all the data is wiped clean or else you will get issues. I did anyway. What I do is use a partition manager and make sure all partitions are destroyed, including the hidden one that Vista puts on the HDD, then format.
 
Hmm maybe I didn't wipe it out properly. I had XP installed originally, then I put in the Vista DVD and booted it. After it was done checking all my system info it asked me to click on the Install Vista Now button and I did. Then it popped up with a list of my hdds and partitions. It listed Partition 0 590g, Partition 0 63g, Partition 1 36g, Partition 1 36g. Since I use the big hdd for my OS and the 74g for my backup stuff I just deleted the Partition 0 63g and then formatted the 590 partition and then installed Vista.

If this was the wrong way to do it, would I be able to use a partition manager to delete the extra one to solve the issue of it prompting me to select the OS every time I boot up or would I have to do a clean install again?
 
Check out the Vista disk manager it should see it and allow you to delete it and reclaim it as free space.
 
I encountered this bug with an ASUS P5K and Vista Ultimate 64. With 4GB of D9 installed, I couldn't install or update the OS with the appropriate 4GB patch without bluescreens.
 
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