Is RAM on Windows 7 32 bit limited to 4GB by a license?

4 GB is the maximum usable memory the 32-bit version can handle. While a 64-bit operating system can increase the capabilities of a processor drastically, the real jump in power comes from software designed with this architecture in mind.

However, with Physical Address Extension enabled you can have more than 4GB of RAM addressed, but not more than 4GB of RAM addressed per application. I guess my question really is does this violate a Terms of Use?

No it will not.

While 32 bits of information can only access 4 GB of RAM, a 64-bit machine can access 17.2 BILLION gigabytes of system memory, banishing any limits far into the future. This also means that your video cards and other devices will not be stealing usable memory space from the operating system. Windows 64-bit Home editions are still limited to 16 GB of RAM for licensing reasons, but the Professional and Ultimate versions can use up to 192 GB of RAM, so keep that in mind when building that killer system.

Qlemo, so by using that patch to bypass the 4GB RAM limit, I'm technically violating the License/TOU? Doesn't make much sense to me since x64 can utilize up to 192GB of RAM on the enterprise edition, but on my 32bit enterprise I'm LEGALLY limited to 4GB unless I had Windows Server?

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't violating any licenses before I deployed this to a corporate environment.

Not attempting to be snide, but shouldn't you be asking this question to your corporate attorney?

As leew already mentioned, it amounts to hacking the OS, and that is what isn't allowed. Why don't you just install the 64bit version of Windows 7?

Thank you all for your input. The reason that I can't use 64 bit is due to application compatibility. There are a lot of proprietary applications that simply cannot be ran on 64 bit Windows. I figured I'd check in with a large community that probably deals with things like this. Speaking to a corporate attorney isn't really an option for me as I'm only a contractor and that's not my decision to make. So before I make a recommendation for something I wanted further information.

Kaufmed, I'm not disputing that at all. I agree that is the best route. I just wanted to see if it was already clearly laid out that it was not legal.

Thanks for the input!

For running legacy programs, have you looked into running them in a VM? That way the PC could have a 64-bit OS for the main OS, and the legacy programs run in a virtual 32-bit environment.  WIndows 7 originally had  the now-depreciated XP Mode option for this, but there's still ways to do this with a newer version of Windows as the VM.

I wouldn't trust legacy programs to run properly with PAE enabled anyway.

Unfortunately you run into even more licensing issues if you run Windows 7 32 in a VM you have to have another license for that. For Windows XP Mode you don't get Windows Updates anymore. In addition to that each machine has to have addition licensed software. I'm pushing for upgraded software though!

I'd also check with that software whether it really only runs on a 32bit platform. I haven't seen much software that really can't be run on a 64 bit OS with a little tweaking. Actually the only issue I've seen is with drivers for obsolete hardware, but I don't really count drivers as software.

Some of them are 16bit applications which can't run under 64bit. Another one is an Autodesk application that is known to have compatibility issues with 64bit and no work around besides upgrading to a new version (costs money).