3 GB switch........again

[Smalerbi]

Hi All. I hate to re-hash old news but we have finally upgraded our OS from W2k to XP. One of the things I remember hearing about was XP could use up to 3gigs of ram if the 3 GB switch was activated. Could someone please explain to a dummy like me where and how I activate this switch?

Thanks much.

Scott.

[Morbid Angel]

old question indeed.
Find a file called boot.ini in your c:\ root
edit it to insert following line

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="3 Gig Switch" /fastdetect /3GB

under first line of operating systems, this should initialize 3gb switch on boot next time around. I have to warn you though, in some cases this will result in fatal hd crash and your system will not be able to boot after this. So back up your stuff as well as boot.ini before doing this.

[RErender]

It should look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional 3GB" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

(do not just copy and paste this since your rdisk and partition values may be different!)


This way you always have an option between the switch and non switch startups thus you will not be locked out of your system (the first one will be the default and you will have 30 secs to make the choice). Using this method there is very little chance of trouble and you'll never need a dos boot disk to fix your ini.

[Smalerbi]

Thanks for the information; however, I’m not too thrilled with the possibility of the hard drive crashing. It’s like the commercials you see on TV for medications. It may help with the symptoms, but the side-effects are much worse.

Thanks again.

[RErender]

There is no danger of your hard drive crashing...just that you might not be able to reboot if you do not do it like my example and have a choice of 3GB or not.

[percydaman]

ya as long as you get the partition info correct the worst that should happen is that the /3gb switch wont really work so youll just reboot the other instance of windows.