Windows 8 PAE support?

You cannot update from 32-bit to 64-bit. That much I know. I haven't tried installing Windows 8 x32, so unfortunately, I can't answer the first question.

GERGE said:

But Wikipedia reports that "Microsoft Windows implements PAE if booted with the appropriate option, but current 32-bit desktop editions enforce the physical address space within 4 GB even in PAE mode".

So, is their policy still the same with Windows 8? If it is, is there a way to update from Windows 7 Starter to 64-bit Windows 8 Pro?

Thanks for your help.

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I used 32bit Win8 only on some old pentium 3 (one that has PAE) for testing. Unfortunately, I didn't had 4GB of RAM to confirm what you're asking.

Sorry I didn't tried this before, I usually play in VirtualBox but didn't thought about this one because I use 64bit VM:
If you're still interested in finding the answer, install 32bit Win8 in VirtualBox and enable PAE + give the machine 4GB RAM or more.



This should show if all memory is allocated (like in Linux, PAE kernel) or not. But I still think that the policy is the same as in Win7/XP.

Do this step in Arch or where you are comfortable and all the memory is available. VBox should run fine for testing.

64bit:
The best solution is the clean install, because as stated above, you cannot upgrade from 32bit to 64bit.

Cheers
Hopachi

Forget what I said about that test. I've made it and it sees 4GB or more but ONLY 3GB are usable (being seen in the system window).
Compared with a Ubuntu Server x86 VM, here you can use 4GB or more. Both systems were tested under VMware Player 5 where PAE is available by default.

but current 32-bit desktop editions enforce the physical address space within 4 GB even in PAE mode

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Wikipedia was right.

So:

But I need to use 6-8 GBs of ram

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Not possible with Win8 x86.

The only solution is a clean install of Win8 x64.

Regards
Hopachi

PAE on a workstation Windows OS is a bad idea, unless you are trying to make an unstable system. There's no reason to fear the x64 OSes anymore, so if you need to use 6-8 GB of memory, just go with x64.

I started off with Windows 7 in 64-bit mode and never looked back. I've never had any problems with the myriad of programs I run on it, many of which are very old. For the two that would not install in a 64-bit OS I used the Windows 7 Virtual Machine and loaded XP in it. I've already tested Hyper-V, the replacement for the Windows 7 Virtual Machine in Windows 8, by installing XP in a virtual machine for these two programs and they work fine too.