Thinking of doing a Modification to the root code of my OS but need more insight into consequences

[Darks63]

I recently doubled my Ram but to my dismay found that Win 32 bit does not support more than 4 gigs of ram. I was unaware of this fact when I bought the new ram and I really want to use this new ram without having to upgrade to Win 8.1 64 bit.

I found this https://news.saferbytes.it/analisi/2013/02/saferbytes-x86-memory-bootkit-new-updated-build-is-out/ as a way to utilize my new ram without having to go through spending 200 to 300 on a new (crappy) 8.1 64 bit Win OS and a hard drive format.

My question is since this program writes to the master boot record and the Win Kernel in order to utilize more ram than allowed would a System Restore point be enough of safety feature to reverse this programs effects if it messes up my system?

For reference I am currently Running Vista 32 bit OS and I have AlienRespawn so as to utilize a system restore point from the bios if worse comes to worse.

 

[Darks63]

Currently I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5800+ but will soon upgrade to a AMD Phenom II X4 B97 once my new motherboard arrives. I wish I could find a cheap win 7 64 to upgrade with but microsoft puts up roadblocks against that with price gouging and dropping direct upgrade support from their website.

 

[AWAR]

Currently I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5800+ but will soon upgrade to a AMD Phenom II X4 B97 once my new motherboard arrives. I wish I could find a cheap win 7 64 to upgrade with but microsoft puts up roadblocks against that with price gouging and dropping direct upgrade support from their website.

You can buy cheap OEM windows licenses from r/softwareswap. There have been thousands of verified trades so it seems that they are legit. Of course you should choose to buy from a reputable trader.

 

[Darks63]

Currently I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5800+ but will soon upgrade to a AMD Phenom II X4 B97 once my new motherboard arrives. I wish I could find a cheap win 7 64 to upgrade with but microsoft puts up roadblocks against that with price gouging and dropping direct upgrade support from their website.

You can buy cheap OEM windows licenses from r/softwareswap. There have been thousands of verified trades so it seems that they are legit. Of course you should choose to buy from a reputable trader.

The main issue I have with those are that they are basically one time uses since they bind to the motherboard. My current motherboard may be dieing so i have a replacement on the way but i am unsure as to how much life is in the one coming since it is used.

 

[AWAR]

snip

I don't really think it's such a big deal at those prices, [small]unless you're that cheap [/small]

 

[Bellvedere]

Currently I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5800+ but will soon upgrade to a AMD Phenom II X4 B97 once my new motherboard arrives. I wish I could find a cheap win 7 64 to upgrade with but microsoft puts up roadblocks against that with price gouging and dropping direct upgrade support from their website.

You can buy cheap OEM windows licenses from r/softwareswap. There have been thousands of verified trades so it seems that they are legit. Of course you should choose to buy from a reputable trader.

The main issue I have with those are that they are basically one time uses since they bind to the motherboard. My current motherboard may be dieing so i have a replacement on the way but i am unsure as to how much life is in the one coming since it is used.

It's actually not much of an issue.

For Windows 7 OEM licenses:
In many cases you can just reactive windows OEM when you get a new mobo (no need to pay for anything). It asks you to confirm that this is the only machine using this license and gives you a number to call (you also have a month? to do this whilst still being able to use your computer normally). From what I've heard most of the time you go straight to a machine that will give you an activation code (which is my experience) but can also go to a human operator who may or may not give you a code. Seeing as you'd still need to go through a few OEM copies to match the price of a regular copy, I think it's easily worth it to go OEM.

For Windows 8 OEM licenses:
I believe these are fully transferable, as in you can transfer the license to a new machine or to another person, no problems.

 

[renegade7]

It's not a software limitation, inability to use more RAM is a limitation of the hardware.

"Bits" in this context refer to the width of the processor's buses, in this, it's a 32-bit address bus. The address bus the set of wires from the CPU to he RAM that tell the RAM which cells to activate for reading and writing, and it's 32 wires wide. Because it's binary, that means the bus can support 2^32 = 4294967296 unique memory addresses, or just over 4 GB of RAM because each address refers to one specific byte of RAM. It simply is not physically possible for the CPU to handle more memory.

32 bit OSes are programmed with this restriction in mind. It's not a simple trick to do to change a few settings somewhere even if your hardware is 64-bit. And even after you get the OS using your extra RAM, you'd still have to deal with the CPU and software issues that changes like that will cause, and even then it won't be as efficient as a 64-bit OS. You're much better off just finding a cheap copy of 64-bit Windows 7.

 

[DoPo]

The main issue I have with those are that they are basically one time uses since they bind to the motherboard. My current motherboard may be dieing so i have a replacement on the way but i am unsure as to how much life is in the one coming since it is used.

When you install Windows 7, you have a month to activate it where you get full access to it and everyhing. Actually, you have more than one month - you can reset the trial period a limited amount of times by opening the command prompt with Administration access and then typing in

slmgr /rearm

Wait for a few seconds and you'll get a message it completed, restart the PC and the trial period would be back to 30 days (so, make sure you do it at the end of the previous 30 days). You can rearm 3-4 times (can't remember exactly, also it might depend on whether you have Home Premium/Professional/etc) at which point your trials "run out". But that's still at least 4-5 months of full access to Windows 7. Source: I do it all the time. Also this [http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/extend-the-windows-7-trial-from-30-to-120-days/]. If you want to check the number of rearms you have available, you can use

slmgr /dlv

(note: it takes surprisingly long time to get the result. As in, it's not instantaneous or close, you'd need to wait for 5-10 seconds with no indication the command did anything in the meantime. Just wait, don't be fooled by the lack of feedback.)

Afterwards, when you have no more trials available, the desktop background is changed to black, you stop getting updates and approximately every hour or two Windows would remind you that you need to authenticate it (opens a window). You can still use everything else in the meantime, so assuming the new MB takes a really long time to arrive, you can still have fully operational system before activating. Or if it takes an even longer time (more than quarter a year), you would have a slightly less fully operational system which you'd still be able to activate when the MB arrives.

Note: that is information about Windows 7 but if you (for some reason) decide to go with Vista, it should work the same way.

 

[Darks63]

Well thanks for all the advice I decided that a update to win 7 would be for the best since my vista os is 5 years old anyway and an os accumulates alot of crap in that time which slows it down.

I just flashed my Mobo bios and installed my new cpu and it seem to be running good will format and install win 7 this sunday.