http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2..._goes_to_t.html

So I'm gonna go ahead and call it now. Some goober is gonna buy a machine with Vista 32 and 4GB of ram and fire up his class action lawyer because his system only uses 3.1 - 3.3GB and Microsoft 'knowingly misrepresented the performance of their product' or some other such nonsense. Im not saying they'll be right or that they will win their suit. I'm just saying I think it will happen. If stuff like the definition of a GB and and people that felt ripped of by 'Windows Vista Capable' made it to court, If this one doesn't I will be surprised.

When somebody does sue, just remember -I called this one.

And of course:
- The trial will be held in East Texas
- A jury of the plaintiff's peers.. people who think IE is the internet

I will even bet that they will lose. They always lose.

People complain when it shows 3.3GB. People complain when it shows the full installed amount.

If Vista shows 3.3GB, they sue Dell (or whoever they bought the computer from). If Vista shows 4GB, people sue MS.

I think anyone who tries to sue anyone over this needs to be shot on site, no questions asked. Seriously, people who sue over stuff like this are money grubbers.

why not vista indicate the amount of system memory installed as well as indicate the amount of system memory available to the OS?

Exactly. In system properties it should say "Installed RAM: 4 GigaBytes; Available RAM: 3.1 GigaBytes", etc. And then it should have a link to help or something that would explain the 32-bit problem, tell them if they have an x64 capable computer, and if so, suggest that they could install Vista x64 if they so desire. Since I think the EULA permits you to install either or, correct?

Microsoft did the same thing with XP. In the original version of XP system properties would only tell you the current speed of the cpu, not the max cpu speed. Some laptops will reduce the cpu when the laptop is not in use to save power. SP1 included a fix to show the max speed because OEM's were getting calls from confuzed users wondering why system properties showed there cpu as slower than what it should be. I expect this was exactly the same situation. Users were calling there OEM's wondering why the memory listed was less than the max memory, so the OEM's requested this fix from microsoft.

-gosh

Start > Run > Winver > OK

"Physical Memory Available to Windows"

I don't have a system with 4GB RAM, so I can't check if this is the real available memory, or the total memory, but the way it is phrased makes me think it is the available memory.

I have 4GB and heres what i get
>winver
Physical memory available to Windows 3,406,144 KB


my laptop runs SP1 and while it only has 2GB it still says Available memory on winver not Physical memory or installed memory so that verbiage hasnt changed. Hopefully they leave it that way so we will have a way to see both