DescentBB

I just upgraded my laptop from vista home premium to windows 7 pro. my system has 4 gigs of ram but windows says only 2 is usable. what does this mean and is their a problem? shouldn't it be using all 4?

heres a screenshot

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5189/capturexa.jpg

It's the 32-bit version. Usually the usable quantity is larger than 2.75 GB though (3.25 GB is what I most often hear).

Windows 7 Professional does have a 64-bit version, though, and with the amount of memory you have you should probably install that. It will require reinstalling all your applications afterward, but it should give you use of all 4 GB of memory.

P.S. Just remembered I should point out - the 32-bit and 64-bit versions aren't sold separately, so you shouldn't need to spend any more money on it - I don't recall off the top of my head how to install the other version though. I think my copy of Win7 had two discs, one for each version, but I'm not sure the upgrade has the same.

well i bought windows 7 pro, both 32bit and 64bit versions, and i also got windows 7 ultimate, both versions as well. i guess it makes sense to install the 64bit version, i just didn't think it mattered. guess it does.

since i blew money on ultimate would i get any benefit at all installing that version?

All the bells and whistles come with the Ultimate. you get to use 2 more features in Ultimate Bitlocker and any of the 35 languages that come with Ultimate. Bitlocker has hardware requirements.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766200

Ultimate does have a few more things, but most people won't use them. The two Heretic mentioned are probably the most interesting.

Yeah its the 32 bit memory limit, I would recommend a format and reinstall to the 64 bit edition.

I installed Ultimate this morning. everything is so much faster and responsive, even for this AMD chip. my radeon 3200 runs about twice as fast. i never realized how horrible vista was until now.

thanks for the input, i appreciate it.