By SN
Tuesday May 20, 2008
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Apple Watch – May 16, 2008:
Consider this: Apple’s retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1,000 or more.
Should I repeat those numbers? The share data is for first-quarter brick-and-mortar stores, as tabulated by the NPD Group. Apple’s market share is but one measure of success. Sales growth is way up, while Windows desktop PC sales are way down.
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“In notebooks they’re growing two times the market,” said Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis. “Windows notebooks are pretty much flat right now.”
For the first quarter, Windows notebooks had “zero percent” growth year over year, Stephen said. By comparison, Apple notebooks had “50 to 60 percent growth.”
On the desktop, “They’re up 45 percent,” he continued. “The [overall] market is down 20 percent. Windows desktops would be down 25 percent.” The figures are also for first quarter.
I spoke with Stephen earlier this afternoon. He remarked: “iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows.”
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For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
#19 get real… I think its fair to say most OS sales are with the PC. Thats the way its done with PC’s today.
They build it into the cost of teh PC. With Apple its not built in to the cost of the computer, but you’ll still buy it with a new one. What good is it otherwise?
Check your history, and your histrionics… XPsp2 is a mature and stable system. When XP came out, 2000sp4 was the mature system. Why oh why would anyone upgrade to it from 2k? 🙂
The conversion to vista with no service pack from XPsp2 is quite a lot *less* bumpy than the move from 2000sp4 to XP with no service pack, 5 years ago.
There are bumps, there are flaws, but history is just repeating itself…
…just like your doom and gloom story which I heard 5 years ago.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. 🙂
# 31 Mister Mustard
“New PC sales, where the OS was rammed down users’ throats. ”
Show he evidence of how many were bought that way.
“In any case, I’ve never met a real person who went to a store and purchased Vista. ”
Oh that’s right because you never experienced it it never happened
“Are you implying that somebody really did?”
I am not only implying it I am guaranteeing it.
# 30 JPV
“They completely suck in dealing with large quantities and sizes of files.”
Not true at all I use them for HD footage and move around files that are 100 GB in size on a regular basis. I also use PC’s This artificial this one is better than that one is a bunch of crap!!!
# 42 Terry
“Vista 32-bit can only use 3 gig of ram. It shows 4 gb in the system control panel but is only using 3. Another silly trick by Microsoft for the uninformed.”
No Terry it is you that is uninformed. Vista 32 will use 4GB of RAM. On certain hardware you might need to make a few changes to get it all. That is the hard wares fault not Vista. The OS segments out 2 GB for itself and the other 2 is for your apps. This is well know information at this point.
It also reminds me of what lies are.
a) lies
b) damned lies
c) statistics
Indeed the Macs and Apple in general have the best advertising. Love the people with white cords jumping around. And everyone says they have no problems with virus’s, but then neither do I. I do have to run software from a company other than Microsoft to keep it out of course.
I would love to have Mac, and might spend the money to buy one if it wasn’t for the spending of another $15,000 to duplicate the windows software I use. That is the Windows software I use that is available for the Mac. Which seems to be limited to the very expensive stuff.
Linux has a greater variety of innovative stuff than the Mack, oops, that’s a truck. A big heavy thing used to haul dirt around.
My Windows is XP Home. I have 4 gigs of ram. Home sees the other half of my P4 CPU as a separate processor, so allocates 800 meg of ram to it, leaving 3200 meg available for the main.
The MoBo is Asus and I built it myself for video editing 4 years ago. At that time I simply removed the HDD from an earlier machine and plugged it into this one. Windows, Adobe, Pinnacle, Sound Forge, and Sonic stuff needed new updated equipment numbers to satisfy their silly crap. But nothing had to be reinstalled. Do that with a Mac.
mac haters remind me of the guys in high school who were financially responsible, emotionally stable, nice guys that … wait for it … never got the girl.
hahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha
>>Oh that’s right because you never experienced it
>>it never happened
Provide some stats, “J”. I’ve never met, known, or read about anyone (other than tech reviewers) who have actually purchased a copy of Vista. If you know of some, it’s up to YOU to provide some evidence.
On the other hand, if you’re going to offer yourself up as an example, you’re even dumber than I gave you credit for.
Face it. Vista blows. It was a dud. It almost got up to XP levels of performance, but not quite. Six years of programming for THAT??? Even King Bill is talking about Windows 7. Since when does Microsoft start pimping its new OS a year after the last one was released?
140,000,000 copies “sold”??? HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!!!
Well, if people can get M$ Office on their Mac, they don’t really care what OS is underneath !!! And remember, nobody buys a computer to run an OS, it’s the APPLICATIONS they want to run !!! So, if this begins to hurt M$ in the pocketbook, look for M$ to PULL M$ Office for Mac OFF THE MARKET !!!
#27
Not entirely true. The 2 GB is for *each process*. If I have 50 processes running, *each* can address up to 2 GB of, from their perspective, dedicated space. the OS then determines the optimal location to map the virtual memory addresses (physical ram or virtual memory). What single process do you have that is using more than 2 GB of RAM?
# 52 Ah_Yea
Actually you can run OSX on a PC, a group that goes by the name OSx86 has been doing it for some time now. http://www.osx86project.org
I’ve been thinking about trying it myself.
People who don’t understand percentages shouldn’t use percentages as an argument!
Blindingly obvious that YOU CANNOT COMPARE PERCENTAGES unless you are comparing EXACTLY the same. All comparative arguments are bound by this same rule. A small market share (say two items) doubling cannot possibly be compared with a 200 Million share increasing at the same percentage rate. I know this is blindly obvious but again and again these fake comparisons are made. I repeat. You are never never ever comparing like with like.
I am a comparative educationalist and – as a student way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth – this was the very first lesson I had hammered into me. Would-be mathematicians/statisticians should avoid this fundamental error, or risk being discredited.
# 66 Mister Mustard
“Provide some stats, “J”. I’ve never met, known, or read about anyone (other than tech reviewers) who have actually purchased a copy of Vista.”
Such a small world you live in.
“If you know of some, it’s up to YOU to provide some evidence.”
No. The burden of proof is on you. I said there were 140 million copies sold. You claimed they were not bought but forced on people. YOU have to provide the proof to that claim.
“Face it. Vista blows. It was a dud. ”
OPINION OPINION OPINION OPINION!!!!! Not one shred of evidence.
“It almost got up to XP levels of performance, but not quite. ”
It performs better than XP on all my systems. You just don’t know that because you have crap for hardware.
# 68 Thomas
“Not entirely true. The 2 GB is for *each process*. ”
No the 2 GB is for all processes outside the kernel and each one can have as much as 2 GB. When you go over that you start to disk swap. Unlike 64 bit OS where even 32 bit apps can have 4GB. IF they are 64bit they can have as much of the leftover memory they want minus the 2GB for the OS.
What single process do you have that is using more than 2 GB of RAM?
Mental ray is the big one. Zbrush is another. Do you want me to list them all?
“Microsoft is run by marketing people and they sure need all the help to sell their second class products. Apple makes great products that sell themselves”, heard that from a IT guru a while ago. I’d say they are in different business, software versus software/hardware, which also makes a big difference.
But hey, I saw a guy doing some kind of software testing on MacPro + 30″ display and was amazed how he was using it. He was behind a glass wall but I asked his workmate what was going on. Turns out, he had 17 major apps running on OSX, and with Parallels running Vista and XP with several apps too. I have never seen anybody going back and worth with so many windows, must have been at least 60, and there seem to be at least 6 work Spaces. Apple Magic Mouse with 6 buttons made the whole system spin like crazy, Expose>window>Automator task> move to different Space>observing> doing about the same and going to next Space> typing> Automator task etc. Everything done about the same hectic pace as some kids play video games.
I asked him why not just use couple of computers, I know it works quite well (my wife uses 2 PCs and a Mac side by side). The guy answered: You know, PC’s are OK, their weak point is Windows OS. They work well on stuff like games which require lot of muscle, and are running only one app at the time. With Windows, more apps you have running more unstable it gets. To us PC’s are not real computers like MacPro with OS X is. If you would tell these guys, we are now switching to PC’s only, they would scream: “What! you want us to do our work with typewriters”. So there.
I would be happy to see more different models from Apple. I used to have a PowerComputing Apple clone because that was what I needed at the time. Waited many years to buy a new Mac, using G4s till Apple switched to Intel, meanwhile almost got stuck on PC’s. I’m pretty sure Apple will either start making a PC type line of computers or buys some PC company to make computers for the regular person, who really needs the advantages of the OS X.
#69 becagle, Thanks!! Awesome and excellent. I’ll get on it right away!
#70. Good comment! Like I said in #17, those percentages just didn’t make any sense. So let me see, if I sold one copy of my OS last year and 2 this year, I have increased my sales by 100%! Now if Microsoft sold 100 million copies last year and only sold 150 million this year, well, they’ve only increased their sales by 50%. I WIN!!!
#71, Just so you know, Microsoft solved that cut and paste loosing info since NT4 (about ~10 years ago). The file is first copied, then verified that it was copied, and lastly automatically deleted.
#72
You are very much mistaken. That 2 GB is not for all process it for *each* process. Each process gets a dedicated 2 GB of *virtual* address space.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223
AArrgg..It’d be nice if we had a real editor to do posts. Even being able to preview it would be handy.
By the way, let me add that even in a Wow32 on a 64-bit OS, a 32-bit process will only see 2 GB of private address space.
# 75 Thomas
“You are very much mistaken. ”
No Thomas it is you that is mistaken. You post things without actually knowing what they are saying.
“Virtual address space” and RAM are not the same thing. All of your apps SHARE the 4GB of RAM. The OS get priority for the first 2GB if it needs it for its processes. This is very rarely the case. So on most occasions there is a 1 GB left over. All the programs still SHARE that RAM. Each app only uses the RAM it needs. Each program addresses 2GB but that doesn’t mean it uses all of the remaining RAM. I will quote from your link “The operating system only assigns RAM page frames to virtual memory pages that are in use.” That means more than one app can share that 2GB of RAM that is left over. They share what they need. If you over run that then swapping begins. One program may only need 1GB then the other may need 2. That would mean that one program gets 1GB of the RAM and the other gets 1GB of RAM and 1GB swapfile.
ALL THE APPS SHARE THE 2GB OF RAM!!!!!!!!!!! Having their own 2GB Virtual space doesn’t change that!!!!!
# 77 Thomas
“By the way, let me add that even in a Wow32 on a 64-bit OS, a 32-bit process will only see 2 GB of private address space.”
Not true. Every one of the Adobe production suite 32 bit apps under Vista 64 sees 4GB of space. The 32 bit limit!
Don’t feel bad this issue confuses a lot of people so it isn’t just you that doesn’t grasp it.
I may not have explained that well but I know for certain that your concept of how it works is wrong.
#69, Do the OSX86 move man. Well worth it. Plus it’s stable enough where Psystar sells PCs with it already installed and tunning. It’s how I familiarized myself with OSX before I took the big dive into the Mac world.
The article clearly ignores that Vista has close to 100% of the computer masochist market.
#78
No J, you are wrong and you almost stumbled on your mistake with this:
Again, I quote from the link from Microsoft with emphasis:
The processes have no idea how that virtual memory is mapped to physical memory. All they know is that they have 2 GB of memory to use and they tell the OS what part of the 2 GB they are using. The OS does not arbitrarily block out 2 GB of physical or virtual memory. That would be incredibly wasteful. If that were the case, then if you disable the swap file, you should be able to only run two programs that consume 1 GB a piece and that is clearly not the case. I have the swap file disabled on home rig and I regularly push VS over 1 GB of consumed memory while running Office and a host of other applications. I can easily commit 3+ GB of memory without a swapfile. What I cannot do is to have more than 4 GB of memory IN USE including the OS. In addition, if what you said were true, it would be impossible to run Windows with less than 2 GB of RAM and no swap file and that is clearly not the case.
So, no, you are wrong. The same 2 GB of physical memory is not necessarily shared by all applications. That would only be true if the OS is actually consuming its full 2 GB of memory. You can run many applications, each with 2 GB of dedicated VIRTUAL space as long as the sum total of what is USED by applications AND the OS is not over 4 GB.
For Adobe’s 32-bit software, running in a Wow32, to address more than 2 GB of memory there are two possibilities:
1. You are wrong (likely)
2. They have made some special modifications to allow it to do so. I cannot imagine what those would be as it would crash on a 32-bit OS.
RE: Adobe
I found the answer. Indeed they have made special modifications to let apps like Photoshop break the 2 GB virtual address space limit on a 64-bit OS. On a 32-bit OS you can use PAE to break that limit as well. That it breaks the functioning of the WOW is ugly.
# 82 Thomas
“The OS does not arbitrarily block out 2 GB of physical or virtual memory. ”
Arbitrarily? No. I quote MS (I capitolized the ONLY)
“The address space is usually split so that 2 GB of address space is directly accessible to the application and the other 2 GB is ONLY accessible to the Windows executive software.”
Here is the link
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6sho6
What else can I say except YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“So, no, you are wrong. The same 2 GB of physical memory is not necessarily shared by all applications.
YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!! Lets define Share because I think you and are not on the same page. Share to me means there is 2GB of available memory. Every application has access to that 2GB of memory and can use any unused portion of it for there own needs.
“For Adobe’s 32-bit software, running in a Wow32, to address more than 2 GB of memory there are two possibilities”
Oh I missed the “wow” part of the wow32 in your last post. Yes I agree if you are using 16bit code no you cannot access 4GB on Vista 64
However a true 32bit app. (not using wow32.) can access all 4GB without any special modification.
Don’t believe me look here
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5tdhz6
Not sure if Adobe is or not but I have many many many apps that are TRUE 32 bit and they all see 4GB under Vista 64
# 83 Thomas
Photoshop break the 2 GB virtual address space limit on a 64-bit OS
THERE IS NO 2GB LIMIT!!!!!!!!!! Except for 16 bit code. 32 bit code is limited to 4GB under a 64 bit system. Here look at another quote from MS and your link (a Virtual Address Space) going from 0 to 4,294,967,295 (2*32-1 = 4 GB) 32bit apps are limited to 4GB of memory space.
Thomas your grasp of Windows memory management is not as good as you would like to believe it is. If you are a programmer you are probably not a very good one.
I laugh at people who think Mac’s are for the otherwise technologically incompetent. That may have been the case many years ago, but MacOSX changed all of that. Is Vista or XP “harder” to use than MacOSX? No, not for day to day computer usage, but it is a lot easier when you factor in dealing with computer management tasks, especially drivers, antivirus, etc.
As someone who works in IT, I don’t want to have to go home and fix my own computer. I love coming home to my 24″ iMac, because I don’t have to futz with it to get done what I need it to. I have all my Unix tools built in or easily added, it can run Windows apps via Parallels or Bootcamp for games. And I wouldn’t call myself a gamer per se, but the iMac is an excellent game platform. Using Bootcamp I can play the games that aren’t yet published for the Mac, and they look GREAT on the flatpanel display.
I’ve used Mac’s off and on for about 10 years. I used to hate Macs and Mac users, until I used one. My office gave me one of the ~400Mhz Powerbooks when they first came out. Man that was a nice laptop. MacOS 9 was stable, had lots of apps for getting my work done, but I still primarily used Linux as my office workstation. Later on I bought a Dual G4 PowerMac, which replaced both my home PC and Linux box. I caved in a couple years ago and bought another PC running XP just to play games on. It had a lot of problems, mostly video driver related, but also had issues with the power supply and hard drives.
Last year when I started a new job I took my hiring bonus and employee discount and bought myself the top of the line 24″ iMac. It was pricey but feature for feature it isn’t bad compared to a Dell XPS type box. It is all I use now.
For the record, I am a Storage Architect/Unix Admin. I enjoy performance tuning SAN and backup systems for fun and profit. Not your typical creative type who is “too dumb to use a PC”. I’m used to spending more to get higher performance and higher quality results.
#84
Again, J the OS would be INCREDIBLY inefficient if user mode applications could only be swapped in and out of the same 2 GB of physical memory. As I said, if that were the case, then how can the OS run with less 1 GB of RAM and no swap file?
Here are two tests to prove you wrong:
Test #1
1. Take a system with less than 1 GB of RAM
2. Disable the swap file.
Can it boot? Yes? Can it run a few small programs like Notepad? Yes? Then clearly the OS is not dedicating 2 GB to itself as it does not have 2 GB.to do so.
Test #2
1. Take a system with 4 GB of RAM.
2. Disable the swap file.
3. Run a program that consumes 1 GB of memory
4. Run another program that consumes 1 GB of memory.
5. Run another program that consumes say 100 MB of memory
In your world, that should not be possible as 2.5 GB are being allocated and yet you can easily do this.
The problem is that you confusing physical memory with the virtual address space. They are completely different. Windows, going back to NT, will try to maximize use of physical memory. Limiting itself to only 2 GB of physical memory for user mode would frankly be dumb.
Regarding your quote, you did not quote the entire paragraph:
Again, they are talking about VIRTUAL address space not PHYSICAL memory. That is completely different. In the interest of clarity, in further posts, make it clear when you are talking about physical memory and when you are discussing virtual addressing.
RE: Adobe
ALL 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit Windows OS will run in a Wow64 much like all 16-bit applications will run on a Wow32 on a 32-bit OS. In researching this, I found that you can compile your 32-bit application with a flag called /LARGEADDRESSAWARE which will let you address the full 4 GB of memory available by a Wow64. Note that standard 32-bit applications that do not have this compile flag will assume that they only have 2 GB of address space available even when running in a Wow64.
> THERE IS NO 2GB LIMIT!!!!!!!!!!
You are contradicting yourself and making yourself look foolish. Read your own posts and links. Applications are only given 2 GB of available memory, via virtual addressing, on a 32-bit OS and if not specially compiled, on a Wow64. However, if they are specially compiled, as all of the Adobe apps must be, then they can address the full 4 GB of memory.
It is clear you do not know what you are talking about. This is Windows architecture 101 stuff from 10 years ago.
It occurs to me that there is a simple way to think about why your architecture is unbelievably inefficient. Suppose I have a 4 GB system running a 32-bit. According to you, if the OS is only consuming 500 MB and 2 GB are dedicated to a specific area of physical memory for applications, that would mean that 1500 MB of physical memory is completely wasted. That is most definitely not the case and has not since NT was built.
# 86 Thomas
After reading your post I get the feeling that you and I are arguing the same point but are getting confused because of descriptors like Physical and Virtual
Here are the facts as I see them and what I have been trying to say I have simplified it.
1) 32 bit OS’s offer only 4GB of virtual memory addresses.
2) XP and Vista 32 split those address into 2GB for apps and 2GB reserved for the OS and is evidenced by my quote from MS Hardware Developer Central. This is why I said the apps share 2GB. It is true. Apps share their 2GB of the total 4GB memory addresses. The only exception to this is the 3GB switch. which sets it at 3 and 1
3) ALL processes have access to ALL of the 4GB of physical RAM minus the hardware usage for IO. The OS decides as to where and when they use what part of that 4GB.
4) On XP and Vista 32 no single process can access more than 2GB of virtual or physical RAM for its own use at any one time. However under a 64 bit OS a 32 bit process has the mathematical and technical limitation of 4GB not 2GB
Those are the points I was trying to make. If you don’t agree that these things are correct then you are very confused or ill-informed. The facts are on my side and there is no debate about that. So I assume you agree with those points.
Oh BTW 1GB + 1GB + 100MB does not equal 2.5GB and if you do something like you proposed you are more than likely going to see a “Virtual memory low alert” if you have enough system processes running.
Also, posting the whole paragraph from my quote does not change the meaning whatsoever.
Another thing the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE does not have to be compiled. It is also not the same as 4GT so does not pose the issues that you put forth.
# 87 Thomas
“According to you, if the OS is only consuming 500 MB and 2 GB are dedicated to a specific area of physical memory for applications”
I NEVER SAID “dedicated to a specific area of physical memory” The only person that said physical memory was YOU!!!!
#1 Correct
#2 Correct
#3 Correct although the processes generally do not think they have access to 4 GB of physical memory which is the whole point. The typical 32-bit application, given no custom boot switches, thinks it only has 2 GB of available memory address space because the OS only allocates 2 GB of virtual space.
#4 Correct, if I understand what you are saying. By default, a typical 32-bit application is only given 2 GB of address space even under a 64-bit OS. The only way a 32-bit application can be allocated by the OS a full 4 GB of address space is for it to run on a 64-bit OS and be compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE switch. Otherwise, the 64-bit OS will assume that the application does not know how to address more than 2GB of space and only allocate 2 GB of virtual address space.
RE: Oh BTW 1GB + 1GB + 100MB does not equal 2.5G
Yes, yes. It is 2.1-ish GB which still breaks your previous claim of 2 GB of dedicated phsyical memory. Assuming the OS is using less than 500 MB, then 1GB+1GB+0.5GB proves the point just as well.
> I NEVER SAID “dedicated to a specific
> area of physical memory”
From Post #84:
>> So, no, you are wrong. The same 2 GB
>>of physical memory is not necessarily
>>shared by all applications.
>YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!!
Fundamentally, how physical memory is mapped is entirely separate from the virtual address space allocated to applications. Thus, on a Windows machine, with 4GB of memory, it will use as much of the 4GB for applications as it can (meaning sans memory *used* by the OS or hardware etc). Thus, there is no 2 GB limit of *physical* memory on a 32-bit OS. That is a limit of how the OS allocates virtual address space to the processes. Even with that limitation, the OS can use more than 2 GB of *physical* memory for user mode applications, although it cannot have in use more than 4 GB of memory allocated to all applications and the OS.
# 89 Thomas
“#1 Correct
I know
“#2 Correct”
I knew we agreed and it was a miscommunication
#3 Correct although …”
I know what you are saying but the theoretical limit is 4GB not 2GB. The 2GB virtual space was an artificial limit. I must say I have not yet run into a major 32 bit app that does not see all 4 GB of it’s possible memory. Everything but little utilities that I run sees all 4 GB
“#4 Correct, if I understand ”
Define typical. Those are probably very different things to you and me and to everyone else too. Yes I agree it only works with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE switch set to on (Which is not a big deal at all.) and on a 64bit system. Like I said I have yet to see the major app that is not set that way
“Yes, yes. It is 2.1-ish GB which still breaks your previous claim of 2 GB of dedicated physical memory. ”
I NEVER SAID THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!
>YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!!
You are splitting hairs. “not necessarily” Oh come on. You posed that statement when I never said anything about “Physical Memory” or “dedicated physical memory. ” That was your conclusion about what I said not mine
“Fundamentally, how physical memory is mapped is entirely separate from the virtual address space allocated to applications.”
Yeah yeah yeah. We agree on all of that but once the OS maps out what it needs it will force the apps to share the remaining RAM and disk swap before it gives it up. Too me that is dedicated physical memory authorized by the 2GB of virtual memory address it has at its disposal. There now I have said it.
Thus, there is no 2 GB limit of *physical* memory on a 32-bit OS.
I never meant to imply that.
Like I said miscommunication. Too many people too many debates.
RE: 32-bit apps seeing all 4 GB
It is likely that most recent IDEs automatically compile with the large address aware switch enabled. That would explain why when running on a Wow64, most programs use 4 GB.
> We agree on all of
> that but once the OS maps out
> what it needs it will force the
> apps to share the remaining RAM
> and disk swap before it gives it up.
*ALL* operating systems, from past to present, will pin some portion into memory. Windows (along with all other operating systems) will try to pin as little as possible so that it can maximize the use of physical memory in order to maximize performance. Thus, the “remaining RAM” will be the vast majority of it and, on a 4 GB machine, more than 2 GB of physical RAM.
Yes, there is no physical limit of 2 GB on a 32-bit OS. It is a virtual limit. The reason that the Wow64 does not automatically allocated 4 GB is that it needs assurances from the application that it actually knows how to map the full 4 GB since it was never given that much under a 32-bit OS.
So, let’s go back. This all started because #18 made this statement:
I interpreted that as meaning that Vista can only use 2 GB of physical RAM for all programs which is incorrect. Thus, I responded in #21 that Vista can address up to 4 GB of [physical] RAM. To which you responded in #27:
Now, fundamentally, the core confusion is over virtual addresses vs physical RAM. Yes, *each* application in Vista32 can only get 2 GB of virtual address space because the OS will only give it that much. However, since every program gets 2 GB of virtual address space, you can run many programs using more than 2 GB of physical RAM for applications.
To the guy above that thinks FreeBSD, I mean OSX is sluggish and not for power users, you need to get out more! For god’s sake, you can run the bash console in OSX! Can you even run moronic DOS console in Visa?